Search For Tsefan
by HawkTooth
Summary: Book 7. Sometimes, the worst enemies are not those with incredible power; they're the ones that outthink you, make you second-guess every decision and lead you in circles. When a disappearance from Berk occurs, Hiccup, Hawken, and the others are sent on a chase across the earth, where boundaries will be tested, choices questioned, and they'll find out just how far family can reach.
1. Prologue

Prologue

It was a mess that only a handful could accurately interpret, scores and checks and cross-marks scattered over the canvas. Despite the success of the past several years, those marks on the board still looked pitiful to the current beholders however; strongholds still held mainly off the coasts of Russia, China, and Egypt, while stations and ports of access dwindled one by one throughout the mainland and archipelagos of northwestern Europe.

Word tended to spread quickly, and though there were still plenty of souls throughout the civilized world that bore strong distrusts or outright hatred of the fire-breathing reptiles known as dragons, the influence of the Vikings of the Barbaric Archipelago was truly beginning to reverberate, in no small part thanks to envoys and semi-nomadic tribes that now routinely sailed the coasts.

None of this sat well with Viggo, who leaned back in his chair and glared with restrained ferocity at the marked map on the wall; that influence was destroying his profit margins and opportunities. His entire posture screamed tension, a building strain that threatened to pull something.

Instead, the wooden game piece he held between his fingers groaned and finally snapped under the pressure he was subjecting it to, and with a snarl the hunter hurled it with vehemence toward the growing refuse pile in the corner of the tent.

Two years had passed since his visit directly to Berk, and despite everything that Viggo had learned about its inhabitants the trip had not permitted him to gain any helpful insight on the famed dragon man himself that posed the greatest risk to his business, and he knew there were secrets he was definitely missing concerning the rest. Only a few such details had come to light since either. It was risky enough fighting with an enemy that he knew well when they had the resources the Berkians did, never mind the sort of threat posed by one that kept its secrets so well, no matter how much promise such a fight could hold for his business network. However, Viggo would not concede defeat now; after so many years, his Coalition had enough reach that things were just about ready to fall into place, and he would not let this one stumbling block hold him back from pushing everything over the edge.

The tent flap rustled, but Viggo didn't bother responding with even a flicker of an eye as the newcomer stepped inside, choosing instead to remain fixated on the infernal map of progress (or lack thereof) that was fueling his ire so.

"Still having trouble pinpointing a new means of attack?" Ryker asked, noticing the game board that had been haphazardly swatted away across the nearby table as well as the mound of crumpled parchment papers. "We could continue focusing on the east and the Pacific rather than waste our troubles in these waters as we have."

"The problem with that, brother, is that some of the most lucrative markets for dragons and their products still exist in Europe and Africa," Viggo retorted, "and some of the most valuable species are found almost exclusively within the archipelagos here. The Nightmare, for example, or the Tide Gliders, rarely stray far from these waters, and many other species are similarly restricted. And if we were to simply ignore the Riders, eventually their influence would spread and even the vast Pacific would hear of their influence. It's detrimental enough that the Alagaesians stand in the way to the east, and we're lucky that it took only a little push to strain the relations there; the last thing we need is for both sides to meet on common ground."

Viggo huffed and shook his head. "No, the most profitable course of action would be in finding a way to neutralize our opposition that the Vikings and their allies pose to expansion now, both presently and in the long-term." He fixed his brother with a serious, no-nonsense stare. "Everyone possesses a weakness somewhere, and while exploiting that faulty point can either bring immediate downfall or retaliation, it also eventually can bring anyone to their knees; we simply need a means to exploit theirs without gaining any further retaliation in the process."

"Ye may be right," Ryker agreed, "but the Berkians' only real weakness I've seen are their dragons themselves, and they're either never alone, or well-armed, more than the wild ones we take on all the time."

"Everyone slips up at some point however," Viggo countered. "The key is making sure that when you do, your opponent misses the opportunity, and when they do, that you're in the waiting when it happens. We could send one of our vessels marked as trading barges, which might provide the extra benefit of garnering some of Berk's resources while we're at it in exchange for mere money." He nodded, the semblances of a plan finally beginning to come to his mind. "Yes, that could be a perfect course of action if we send the right men; focus on the younger dragons, as they are harder to control and inexperienced and so may be more likely to escape the notice of everyone else for a time. Just one would be more than enough to act as a bargaining chip, especially if it's one of their rarer kinds."

Ryker scrutinized his brother with suspicion, considering the numerous ways in which that foolhardy plan could fail. On the other hand, if someone got caught and thrown off the island it wouldn't set them much further back than they already were. His eyes lit up, and a savage smile crossed his face as pieces also began to fit for him.

"Well, then," he began, "perhaps we already have our quarry picked out. Their Night Furies did have hatchlings, and they'll only be a little more than a year old at the moment, the perfect age."

"Indeed, those infernal reptiles' version of rebellious teenagers," Viggo mused, nodding as he formed a matching smile. "Able to fly, but perhaps still clumsy from inexperience, stubborn; opportunities could abound if we can get men in place." He stood up, tracing a finger along the edge of the discarded board game. "Call for preparations now; we'll send a ship immediately with one of our trusted at the head. I think I know who would be perfect for this as well, as he's proved himself more than once. And, start reaching out through our ranks to prepare false trails; the Berkians will start searching immediately once they find out one of their own is missing, and it does no good to make our part in the chaos immediately visible before we have our bargaining bit secured."

"How far should we send them, then?"

"To the ends of the earth, if possible. I know Hawken and some of the others have gifts that could rapidly prove detrimental, but there is always someone out there who can present a challenge to even the most seasoned fighter."

"Well, the religious sects to the south of Europe could be distraction enough; direct them there, perhaps? Or maybe that so-called demigoddess from the East whom we've been leading along for so many years."

"Indeed," Viggo agreed, walking over to the map and picking up a charcoal pencil, leaving a new series of lines and traces across the surface. "Risks still involved in any of them of course; make sure the shipments for serum production are in place as soon as possible so that we can be ready for action immediately upon the ensuing disruption, and get our contacts for the source to the south ready; if the Riders seek assistance from overseas contingencies must be already set. And, make sure that the upcoming base developments and new deliveries are kept on schedule; we can waste no further time once this is in motion."

Viggo finished his tracing on the map, and put down the pencil before walking with urgent purpose toward the door. As he stepped out of the tent flap however, he paused and turned back toward Ryker. "Oh," he said, "and of course send word to our inside on the Berk trades; every lead will count."

* * *

 **A/N-That's right people, it's here.**

 **I was going to wait to post this until after FF stopped having the ridiculous update issues that have been occurring (no one receiving updates, stories not moving up to the front page when new chapters are posted, errors occurring when new chapters are posted, etc. which also means a new Book of Dragons Chapter went up, and was replaced a couple times to attempt to correct the issue, but still hasn't shown so go check that out). But, the wait up until now has certainly been long enough, and this is also going up as part of a celebration: I have FINALLY graduated from college, and have a summer ahead that is devoid of homework! Yay! I also have the actual cover sketch for this book up as the thumbnail art!**

 **Now, this doesn't mean updates will be coming extremely rapidly; I still intend to have a job over summer that will take time up, and as I am still working on writing out the end of this book (just past 250 pages 1st draft now, and only getting into the harshest sections) and also have an entirely new story for my now tied favorite fandom (Closed Doors) being worked on as well as plans for one-shots to fill in missing regions from previous books or slice-of-life etc. shots from here out, updates will probably occur every 2-3 weeks on average. But hopefully the wait will be worth it: this is already turning out as one of the most complex books, with some of the most macabre scenes I've ever written alongside bits of actual romance and deep family drama, so there's a little bit for everyone.**

 **In the meantime until the next chapter is out, what do you think of the prologue? I think you can guess who the major antagonist is going to be, and we're going to be expanding Hiccup's world a whole lot coming up...**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	2. Chapter 1: Virunga

Chapter 1

Virunga

/

 _Hats off to the haggard_

 _O weary sons of war_

 _Battles never really end_

 _Though the revolution is no more_

 _Turn home to your beloved_

 _You've paid your noted debt_

 _But ready for another day_

 _Another fight's a better bet_

 _-0-_

RATATATATATATATAT!

"Holy son of a-!"

Snotlout, get yer ass out of the way before someone does actually shoot it off!"

"I've got the barrier on Jake!"

"Yeah? They've got grenade launchers. Fireworm, move him!"

Virunga National Park is a massive expanse of fascinating terrain. Within its borders are housed some of the world's most active volcanos (including one of the only constantly present lava lakes in existence, near Nyiragongo crater), equatorial glaciers, swaths of savannah plains, and dense rainforests, and it is also home to one of the largest populations of the critically endangered mountain gorilla left on earth. For those areas of the park that are publicly accessible, it attracts thousands of visitors a year as well, siphoning millions of dollars into the local poor economy of the region.

However, it is also located along the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda; thus, this gem of nature is almost central in a region plagued by major conflict between weak governments and ruthless militias, destroying the pristine life of the region and driving up fear for the safety of living there in every soul that ekes out existence in the area. The people who run the park themselves are desperate to save it, and they had slowly, over a process of decades, managed to get the Congolese government to support them, but resources were stretched thin and thus the park supervisors had little in the way of effectively defending the park from poachers and corrupt genocidal militias that staked out claims within the park's borders, hiding in the dense rainforests and mountains there.

Enter the Riders; it wasn't necessarily the most accurate label, considering the diversity within our motley crew, but the world apparently needed at least something to call us by, since it wasn't just the Dragon Man making headlines any more. With the government's rather notable dislike of the so-called "vigilante" actions we often undertook, shilling out justice and heroics on our own terms, everyone associated with us had been granted an honorary active officer's title so that what we did could be considered justifiable by law. Since then, we had been sporadically called upon to assist with disturbances nearly around the world, where our skills were helpful in quelling struggles with corrupt governments or rebellious factions that presented a danger to civilians. The first, nearly two years ago, had been in South America; now, we were in the heart of Africa, hunting down the heads of the militia that plagued the region with poaching, murder, rape, and other atrocious actions. To say that said militia men were unhappy to find us in the forest looking for them was a gross understatement too.

As Fireworm dragged Snotlout out of the way, Jake weaved through the trees, coming out into the clearing nearby nearly on top of a trio of gunmen, whose first reactions were, unsurprisingly, to shoot at him. Bullets bounced harmlessly off the barrier that glowed around the rattler however, and he swung his tail in response, broadsiding the entire group and sending them flying comically into the bushes. Two of them slammed hard into the trees nearby, and the third suddenly found himself hanging precariously from the paws of a Gronckle.

"Where's Mgobe?" Fishlegs barked down at his involuntary passenger, who looked up at him with wildly fearful but equally determined eyes.

"Jy kry niks van my nie (or, as Fishlegs translated: You get nothing from me)!" he howled in Afrikaans, causing the heavyset Viking setting atop the Gronckle to sigh.

"All the good it does me to understand all these languages when I can't get them to utter even one useful word," he muttered, before directing Meatlug toward the main battlefield. Amongst the trees he spotted a group of Metaraptors pushing back a phalanx of young men armed to the teeth, and just behind them a trio of Night Furies rose up, one bearing a rider decorated in an outfit just as dark as the dragons he rode with.

Naturally, Hiccup and I looked up as Fishlegs called down to us, and smirked in amusement at the hapless soul swinging from Meatlug's tight grip. "Anything useful yet?" I called out, only to be disappointed by a shake of the Viking's head.

"Not a thing," Fishlegs called back. "Mgobe's smart; he's not fighting his own battles, just sending in his soldiers who are all proving rather loyal to him, so we need to look away from the fight!"

"Easier said than done, Fish," Hiccup replied, twisting around and firing Framherja, the electric bolt lighting up the jungle as it detonated amongst a group of the insurgents swinging up from the south between Astrid and Ember. Those who weren't knocked out immediately by the blast were soon taken down by the warrioresses and their dragons. "If we can incapacitate these guys so they can be taken in by the authorities here, then we can spread out again. After a week of combing the park, this is the hardest fight we've come against so far, so we have to be getting close."

"Hiccup, Hawken, this is Eret, do you copy?" the coms suddenly crackled. I paused, firing a shot at the grenade launcher being leveled at us nearby (it detonated very prematurely, its handler not likely to be on his feet any time soon) before speaking into the rematerializing headset I had on.

"Yeah, Hawken here, Hiccup's in too. What've you got?" I asked.

"Kingsley and I found a camp," Eret said, "about three miles northwest of the current battle position. There're troops filtering out into the forest in your direction from here, so I think I found base of operations."

"Any sign of Mgobe?"

"Not yet, but there are dozens of tents and trucks; he could be anywhere here. Not many people left in camp though, most already out fighting you, but…hold on."

There was a pause, and Hiccup and I glanced at each other in curiosity.

Then Eret spoke up again. "Someone just walked out of the big planning tent, looks like it might be…no, not a might, it's definitely him. Mgobe's here; he's heading for the weapons stocks."

"We'll be there in a couple of minutes," Hiccup replied, nodding to me. "Don't let him out of your sight, but you and Kingsley stay unseen if at all possible; last thing we need is to lose you two to a bomb because the nutcase got scared."

"Got it. Spitfire 'n me are cloaked, Kingsley's out of view in the tree here. We'll keep him sighted. Eret out."

The com clicked off, and I sighed. "Finally. Maybe we'll actually get home in time for the presentation."

"You actually want to go to that?" Hiccup chuckled, firing his bow again and half ignoring the screams that followed.

"Want to? Not really," I admitted as I swung my tail and let loose a torrent of flames off of it, searing the air and driving back the insurgents. "But, considering it's the third season and it'll be the biggest turnout yet, it would be in bad taste to not show up if we can. Amethyst, you and Delta able to hold down here?"

"Sure, no problem," the third Night Fury replied with a grin, firing an electrically charged plasma bolt through the trees. A muffled explosion and yells of panic and pain followed.

"Good. Get Embron and Twintail to deal with the fires that get out of hand."

Toothless and I took off moments later, Hiccup on his dragon's back, and we sailed off to the northwest in search of the camp. It didn't take long for sharp dragon eyes to spot it, little more than an oversized clearing to denote it from a distance but the colors of manmade dwellings peeking out between the trees. Nodding to Hiccup, I led the dive as we ducked down, skimming just above the canopy to avoid detection too early. I took it a step further, cloaking myself like a Shadowracer and eliminating all chances of being spotted myself.

Then the explosions went off up ahead, and I caught the roar of a Changewing in reply. Something had gone well off the plan, and Eret and company were clearly being forced to engage.

I sighed and powered forward, sailing over the clearing just as someone fired another rocket-powered explosive and dodging the ensuing explosion and shrapnel as I scanned the scene. Down below, Kingsley and Eret dove out of the way of the blast as well, before both returned to their former path, aiming for the bearer of the weapon. It was hard to tell for a minute who it was, but as soon as the smoke cleared I knew the culprit: Mgobe himself.

Artur Mgobe had been wanted for years by several of the regional governing powers, showing up not long after the famed insurgent Kony left the scene and taking over basically the same role. He was a powerfully built man, keeping his head clear of all hair and holding himself with authority, and he had evaded the officials ever since his first appearance and ravaged the natural and human resources of the country.

Shame for him though, that big cats, raptors, and dragons were a lot better at sniffing out rebels hiding in the forest than the usual government employees were. And, we were a whole lot harder to kill to boot.

Mgobe lowered the barrel just long enough to reload, before bringing it to bear again on the approaching pair. They stalled, and Mgobe fired.

Simultaneously, I dropped from the sky, decloaking and catching the explosive in my paws, and Toothless and Hiccup fired from the tops of the trees taking out the vehicles Mgobe may have attempted to use to escape. The man faltered in his stance, eyes widening as I only grinned when the grenade detonated in my grip. The energy did little more than disappear from sight as I absorbed it and the shards fell harmlessly away, and then as Mgobe was distracted by me something hit him hard from behind, flattening him to the ground.

Seconds later, Spitfire's foot faded into view, followed by the rest of the massive Changewing. Under him, Mgobe let out a groan, both from the impact and the knowledge that he'd lost.

"Artur Mgobe," I growled, demorphing and letting a pair of handcuffs materialize in my grip, "you are under arrest, under orders from the United States and Congolese governments, for the various crimes you have committed alongside your men, including but not limited to rebellious insurgency, rape, murder, theft and larceny, poaching, illegal logging, occupation of protected lands, and, oh, a slew of other distasteful things I don't have the time to list."

I could hear Hiccup snort at my almost awkwardly formal discourse, but I continued anyway as I leaned down and cuffed Mgobe, taking Spitfire's place in holding the man down. "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and _will_ be used against you. You will be brought before a trial for your misconduct, but I wouldn't bet on an easy sentence. Otherwise, all legal details will be laid out to you when you are handed over to the governing authorities in this country. Until then, any and all action taken is fully at our discretion so I strongly suggest you cooperate or I can make the remainder of this trip extremely unpleasant for you. Am I clear?"

Mgobe undoubtedly understood what every word I spoke meant, giving those of us gathered a thoroughly wilted, pathetic stare; for the power he'd commanded up until a few minutes ago, this must have been painfully humiliating. Granted, we couldn't actually do a whole lot to him now that he was actually in our custody, but he didn't need to know that, and both of the governing authorities we were in treatise with at the moment had given explicit permission to use "any and all necessary actions" to bring him in, so our moral codes were holding us back only so far as if he tried to escape. Either way, it would ensure a far more cooperative captive for us, and far less of a headache as we returned to civilization.

"Delta, Astrid, Cami, what's your status?" Hiccup asked into his com. Static replied for a moment, before Delta responded.

"Insurgents are attempting to retreat, but the pack's got them cornered alongside Tuff and Cami. Ember, Astrid, and Twintail are guarding those we've already incapacitated, probably five or six dozen men. Walk in the park, you know."

"Great! If any of them speak English, let them know their boss has been apprehended," Hiccup said almost cheerfully, ignoring the bad pun the raptor had attempted. "Should help keep them calm."

"You caught Mgobe?"

"And Hawken's packing up the weapons load as we speak. We'll meet up with you in a moment or two."

"Roger."

As the coms clicked off again, Eret let out a huff of exhaustion. "Well, I don't know about you younger folk," he drawled, "but I for one am very glad this will all be over shortly. Anyone else up for sleeping three days straight when we get back?"

Toothless' paw shot up in the air, followed by a snort from Hiccup. "Yeah, you would, you lazy reptile," he admonished with a snarky grin. "You know the kids will never let you do that, not for a second."

"Ugh, those five will be the death of me," Toothless huffed, though he couldn't hide a smile. "Never thought I'd say this, but fighting in a jungle is easier than being a parent."

* * *

It was almost as if a parade had been set up as we marched into Butembo, the militia members shuffling along sullenly in front of us. As soon as we cleared the city limits, the gathered authorities who had been notified prior moved forward and took them away alongside the truckload of arms I pulled along, before the head of office and park director, Emmanuel de Merode, appeared in front of us, scrutinizing Mgobe. At a nod of his head, another officer marched forward and roughly grabbed the man's arm, preparing to lead him off with the rest of his men.

"What has it been, three and a half years? More?" the director noted, before smiling. "I express my deepest thanks to you all for helping us finally apprehend this man and his forces. I know it will still be a struggle to keep even the park itself at peace, let alone the rest of our country, but after now I doubt it will be too much to handle."

He held out his hand, which I let Hiccup take for formalities, and then gave a bow of his head which we all returned (Tuffnut too, after an elbow from his wife). "I am sure you all must be exhausted," Merode continued, "so if you would like, we have set up lodging in a more accommodating location than those remote cabins you have been using out there."

"Well, we are certainly flattered," I said honestly, looking around and reading the expressions of my compatriots, "but as much as it is appreciated, and tempting, I believe we are all just anxious to get home; our work never sleeps."

"Well…I certainly understand," Merode agreed. "I just though you would want a decent rest before your trip; you do have a long ways to go."

I nodded, before grinning. "We do, but travel is not as much of a concerning thing for us as it might have been a few years ago; there's a storm building up to the west of here, and that's a better chance for us to return promptly than we would probably have otherwise." Heads swiveled westward, where indeed a large, rolling dark system was beginning to grow; this was the tropics, after all.

The director observed the storm before looking at me quizzically, but he waved it off. "Well, at least you can stay for the banquet," he suggested with a smile. "I insist on returning your help in some manner."

"Yeah, let's just stay for the food!" Tuffnut called out. I snickered at his outburst, and looked at Hiccup for a second opinion.

"Well, he began, "probably not good to make such a long trip on an empty stomach. Don't know about you, but I haven't eaten since like six this morning, and the flight back I know will take a few hours."

I laughed. "Well, then I guess that settles it; we'll join you for the banquet, and I do thank you for this hospitality."

* * *

 **A/N-Yes, chapter one is here! And hopefully now that the update issues appear to be over, everyone will get the notification for this. In the meantime, a few bits and notes: forgot to do this in the prologue, but all you readers who have just come across this story, make sure you go back and read the other 6 books first (a lot, I know) otherwise there's plenty here that won't make much sense. Plus, you get to see the evolution of my skill as a writer! *cringes at the thought***

 **For all of you who have been following for a while, I'm sure you recognize all our friends, and I hope you've caught onto a couple tidbits here that we'll expand on soon enough. Until then, as always let me know your thoughts, predictions, critiques etc. in a review!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	3. Chapter 2: Family, For Better or Worse

Chapter 2

Family, For Better or Worse

/

 _They all have their bumps_

 _Their quirks and odd ones out_

 _We love, we fight, we tease_

 _Ties make no sense but hold throughout_

 _Mistakes are made_

 _Forgive and let go_

 _As family is far deeper_

 _Than just blood or married holds_

 _-0-_

We arrived back at my house in the very early morning, Mountain Time, and everyone sighed in relief at the cool air that greeted us, something that we had all sorely missed in the Congo (even tropics lovers like myself). Mid-May or not, an equatorial rainforest is always two things: wet, and hot. Colorado, on the other hand, could perfectly well have had another blizzard on the way, despite the prediction for weather in the 70's.

As we dematerialized and split up, I looked over to see Ruffnut and Fishlegs fidgeting away, clearly in a hurry to get back to the village, and I couldn't help but chuckle at their anxiety.

"You know you don't necessarily have to wait up for us, right?" I called out. "I'm sure she's dying to see you."

"Yeah, but we need you guys to distract the swarm," Ruff shot back. "They see us as family and heroes just as much as they do you."

I laughed again, and was about to reply when a shout came from my house, drawing my attention in that direction.

"Hey, you guys are back!" Holly yelled, popping out the door with Nara and the dogs in tow. "Enjoy your time leaving me behind on an adventure?"

"Come on Holly, you know you couldn't go with us," I chided. "You're still in school after all."

"Yeah, yeah, still going to complain about it though; school's leagues more boring. Did you at least kick some criminal butts for me?"

"Duh," Tuffnut answered, leaning over with a dorky grin. "None of them could handle this weapon of pure destruction you see before you!" He gestured grandly to himself, earning an eye roll from my sister.

"Yeah, save for that one who got close enough to punch you in the nose," Ruffnut snarked, drawing laughter from everyone. "Destruction fell to the ground, whining that he couldn't feel his face."

Holly chuckled along with the rest of us as well, before walking past to the portal. "Well, don't know about you, but I haven't been able to visit Berk in a couple of days thanks to school (blegh!), so I'm gonna go say hi."

"Wait for us!" Fishlegs called, and with that our exodus to Berk began.

Just as Ruffnut had predicted, there was a great fanfare as we landed in the main plaza, villagers swarming around us. Stoick and Valka led the charge, coming in on their dragons before dismounting and running to Hiccup and Astrid, engulfing them in a massive hug.

"So great te have ye back!" Stoick exclaimed, only half-aware of Hiccup's desperately pleading face as his father squeezed the life out of him. "The village is almost too quiet without Mr. and Mrs. Hiccup Haddock here! Not te mention we need te brush up on your cheifin' practice again!"

Hiccup blushed at the first proclamation (he and Astrid had been married officially for a year and a half, but both of them still had it in them to occasionally act bashful about it), and then groaned at the second once he'd been let go to drag in the required air.

"Oh come on, Hiccup, you know your dad can't keep the position forever," I teased, earning a glare from him.

"Well, he's had it for 35 years now, why not a few dozen more?" he quipped, before ducking away as his father tried to grab him for an old-fashioned father's noogie.

I moved to reply, before my attention was stolen again by Sigrid showing up, bringing someone of very special note in tow with her.

"Deborah!" Ruffnut and Fishlegs both squealed at the same time, making me and the dragons wince at the pitch before they bolted forward to scoop up the little toddler who was squealing just as excitedly in return.

"Mama! Dada!" she yelled, hands waving wildly as her parents swept her up off the ground, hugging her tightly.

Deborah Ingerman was also about a year and a half old, with dirty blonde shoulder-length hair the same shade as her parents', and she appeared to lean toward Ruffnut's figure but held nearly all of Fishlegs' features including not the least of which her father's almost bookish smarts. At her age, the toddler's vocabulary was almost frighteningly extensive. Unfortunately, that often combined with hints of her mother's sense of humor, leading to quips and pranks that nobody expected from the otherwise sweet little girl. Given a couple years, Little Debbie was going to be a force to be reckoned with.

"Did you behave for Sigrid while we were gone?" Fishlegs cooed, grabbing his daughter's little hands and holding them close. Debbie giggled and nodded, though she looked at Sigrid somewhat cautiously, as if that wasn't the whole truth.

The healer laughed. "Well, there was an incident with a couple of herbal dyes," she mused, "but a tie-dye robe here and there probably won't be that much of an issue. Gives color to the house."

"Tie-dye, huh?" Ruff cackled. "Maybe we can give it to her when she gets big enough!"

"So we're gonna decorate the little snack cake?" Tuffnut called out. "She'll look like the real thing soon –ow! Hey!" He turned to glare at Cami, who had elbowed him in the ribs before winking at Ruff; thanks to everyone nicknaming her daughter Little Debbie, Tuff and Snotlout had both stumbled upon a new moniker that had been funny for a day, but after months of it had begun wearing on the proud parents.

"We'll decorate you with bruises instead, how about that bro?" Ruffnut quipped. "Looks like Cami is of the mind to help out too; girls stick together eh?"

Tuff scowled, before raising his hands in surrender. "Fine, I desist!"

"No, pummel Tuffnut!" Debbie suddenly exclaimed, bouncing up and down in her mother's arms and making us all burst out laughing again. Giving an amused sigh, I watched as that extended family turned to head for their home, before glancing toward Hiccup, Toothless, and Amethyst.

"Okay, so one youngster accounted for, but where's the quintet? Stoick?"

Stoick snorted. "Oh they'll be here shortly I'm sure," he said with a chuckle. "They were out practicing their sparring, probably only just heard the fanfare. I'll bet they show up any"-

::Mom! Dad! Uncle Hiccup!::

The series of roars echoed through the plaza, and several small, black forms rocketed toward us. I discretely stepped out of the way of the impending impact, watching as a grin stretched across Toothless' face and he braced himself.

Seconds later, the young dragons barreled into him and Amethyst next to him, dragging the whole group to the ground. Hiccup yelped as one of them caught him with a paw and dragged him into the mob as well, Astrid laughing at him from a safer distance.

::Didja win?::

::We missed you!::

::Bring us any souvenirs back?::

::Tell us what happened! Had to be exciting!::

::Alright, alright, everything in time!:: Amethyst laughed, dodging the onslaught of inquiries from the kids. Only a year and a half old (just like Debbie), we had all come to learn that young Night Furies matured rapidly; they all acted like your average ten year-old would (jokes came rapidly at Toothless' expense that, at least mental-maturity wise, the development slowed greatly after that), which meant a handful when they were already reaching almost eight feet long.

::But first,:: Amethyst continued, ::you all behave for Stoick and Valka? Answer truthfully, since you know I'll ask them.::

The group immediately quieted, glancing at their "adoptive grandparents." We all knew who the troublemakers of the group were likely to be: Lazuli was as stubborn and mischievous as his father at times, Shira was high-strung and headstrong but well-behaved for the most part, and Ellia was just passive overall (running her parents over apparently not included in that generalization). Tamaria was like her mother, meaning the potential for mischief was there, but she was mostly level-headed, and the fifth member of the group…

I looked around, realizing we were missing someone as Lazuli spoke up. ::We were good, sibling arguments don't count! But, uh, Ts- Tsefan was being kind of snappy.::

Toothless' head perked up, and he looked around, before speaking aloud so everyone could understand, "Stoick, where's Tsefan?"

"Oh, he…he's been a bit off the past few days, not sure what's going on," he said. "Probably back in his alcove, though Attonius was looking to talk to him about it."

Toothless sighed before glancing over at Holly, a slight smirk taking up his features. "Hey Holly, mind watching these little spitfires for us? Gotta go find my other son."

Holly's eyes snapped wide as she watched four small scaly snouts suddenly turn to face her, all of them just becoming aware of her presence. The young Night Furies had become very attached to my sister (in no small part because she liked running around and roughhousing as much as they did), and their faces lit up in identical smiles as Holly looked at me and mouthed 'Help me!'

"AUNTIE HOLLY!" four voices screamed simultaneously, and they all scrambled over, smothering my sister and dragging her to the ground in their excitement.

"Aaaahhh! Okay, okay, glad to see you guys too!" Holly half-yelped, half-laughed. "Come on, you saw me a couple days ago, your parents were gone for a week! Smother them! Smother Hawken!" Her face turned to look at me pleadingly. "Gimme a hand, please?!"

I burst out laughing and shook my head, seeing the mischief glinting in the younglings' eyes; they were more than willing to smother me too, but Holly was an easier (and more entertaining) target. "Sorry Holly, gotta go find Zipeau and see what he's been up to with Gobber. Hiccup and Ember were gone, so someone had to lend a hand in the forge."

"Ugh, you will pay for this! Jake? Delta? Feren? Anyone?!"

"Come on Holly, we've gotta show you our practice!" Lazuli pleaded, pushing her back to her feet and then herding her down through the village, to everyone's continued amusement.

Holly gave a more resigned sigh, before nodding. "Alright, alright, lead the way I guess. You manage to quit hitting each other yet?"

"Hey, we're not that bad!"

"Still can't beat me in a contest."

"That's because no one can beat you!"

I chuckled, before glancing at Toothless and Amethyst sympathetically. "Good luck with Tsefan," I said. "Call me if you need me, I know I'm mostly on his good side."

"Will do," Toothless said, he and his mate taking off as I sauntered toward the forge.

* * *

The little gray-tinted dragon held true to his name, tucked away in the cave with his dark ashen hide breaking up his outline amongst the rock walls and adornments of the space. The only things that could possibly have given away that he was there to someone without specialized vision were his eyes, that brilliant yellow-green all Night Furies possessed in some fashion.

Attonius knew that Hiccup, Toothless, and the others were probably reaching the village at that moment from the fanfare that could be heard even all the way out here, but his concerns were not on greeting everyone coming back; he wasn't the best at counseling, but he believed Tsefan needed his attention more than the adults did.

Attonius stopped at the mouth of the cave, taking a breath, before stepping in and searching for the bright eyes that would tell him Tsefan was not only here, but knew that he had a visitor there as well. He finally spotted the green slits, glancing his direction only briefly before turning away from him toward the wall.

"The rest of your family is back, Attonius spoke softly, leaning down and sitting on a nearby rock. "They'll be missing you when the rest of your siblings go to greet them."

"They didn't seem to mind leaving me here for a week without them," Tsefan uttered, barely loud enough for the newly-appointed village minister to hear, but Attonius deflated at the words nonetheless. He still found it somewhat amusing to hear the young dragon speaking common tongue (must have been a byproduct of both Toothless and Amethyst having the gift everyone had decided, as historically Night Furies had never been among the verbal species), but the tone he spoke with and the words used were depressing. The whole village had seen the downcast spirit in the dragon who already lived out his name, but no one had been able to tease out the answer as to why. Now, it was out and apparent why the young reptile was so glum.

"You weren't expecting them to let you go with them, were you?" Attonius asked softly. "You know they would never have permitted willingly putting you in danger like that."

"I'm not incompetent!" Tsefan spat. "I'm capable! They've even made armor for all of us already! We should be able to help!"

"I can't speak as a parent myself, Tsefan, but I wouldn't want to risk my son if I didn't have to, if I had one," Attonius admonished. "You are also not even two years old; us humans wouldn't be ready for anything at all until we were at least fifteen, at two we can barely run without tripping over ourselves. Battles are not for the youth, and they aren't an enjoyable thing in the end, so you should enjoy where you are as it is. Be innocent while you still can."

Silence fell as the young dragon continued to ignore the minister's words, and Attonius leaned back, wondering how he could get Tsefan to cheer up. He meant what he'd said: the Night Fury should not have been as eager as he was to end up in the line of fire, especially as young as he was. They had not been alive the last time Berk had faced a serious threat; neither he nor his siblings knew what it really meant.

Attonius was saved from his musings however by the approaching soft sound of two new pairs of wings, and he turned to see Toothless and Amethyst coming in to land outside the alcove. He stood up with a smile and approached them, arms spread wide.

"Toothless, Amethyst, how good to see you back!" he exclaimed. "And still in one piece!"

Toothless chuckled as he nudged the minister warmly. "Yes, well, we learned our lesson after Guyana. Good to be back."

"And I'm guessing you're still up here trying to deal with our son?" Amethyst toned, looking toward the back of the cove; despite his coloration and posture, Tsefan somehow still stood out like a sore thumb to his mother.

Attonius glanced in the same direction, and seemed to deflate. "Yes, I'm afraid so," he admitted. "It would seem a drive to change the world is not only heritable, but it shows up at a very young age." At the adults' questioning looks, he tipped his head back in a parting gesture. "Think back to your last conversation before you left. I think this may be a discussion better handled by his direct family," he explained. "I'll leave you three to be now, as I also have yet to see everyone else who returned. Good luck."

As Attonius exited the cave, Toothless looked concernedly at his mate. ::No point in delaying, I guess,:: he murmured. Quietly, they padded into the recess, coming up alongside the sulking form of their oldest child (only by a few minutes, but he liked to hold onto that one special fact when he could).

::Tsefan, are you okay?:: Amethyst called, leaning down. The younger dragon only huffed and turned away. Amethyst sighed, and lay down, curling her tail around him. ::Come on Tsefan, we haven't seen you in a week; you should at least give your mother a hug while she's here.::

Still no response.

::We can't solve anything if you don't talk to us,:: Toothless said softly, leaning down on his son's other side. Tsefan barely glanced at them, before letting out a rattling breath.

::We talked before you left,:: he said quietly. ::You didn't even give me the chance.::

The two adults blinked; that explained everything. They had hoped that Tsefan would understand why he couldn't go, and clearly the message hadn't quite sunk in yet.

::Tsefan, we couldn't take you,:: Toothless said quietly. ::You're not even two years old, and-::

::Why should that matter?!:: Tsefan screeched, standing up and turning on them as he stepped away. ::I've been practicing fighting since I was six months old, I know how to use Zipeau and Aurianna's inventions as well as you do, and I don't want to just sit back and watch when things are going wrong while you all run off to help!::

::Practicing and actually being in a war are two very different things,:: Amethyst admonished, losing some of her comforting tone for a reprimand. ::Tsefan, it is very good that you want to help, that you want to be out there making a difference, but what we sometimes have to deal with…my son, you have never experienced having to hurt, or kill, someone else to protect those around you. You've never lived through something that gives you nightmares that haunt your nights for years after; even Hawken and Hiccup suffer still from the battles we had to fight years ago. You may think you are able to go with us now, but you are a long ways from being ready.::

::And how do you know that if you don't let me try?!:: the younger snapped again. ::I don't know if I'm able if all I'm allowed to do is nothing and-::

::And we are not going to let our child run head-on into killing himself!:: Toothless snapped. ::We can't lose you, Tsefan.::

Tsefan worked his jaw, wanting to say more, but he could already tell they weren't going to listen to what he was saying. Steeling his gaze, he jumped up and dashed for the cave mouth, taking to the air and vanishing into the forest before either of his parents could react.

::Tsefan! Tsefan, come back here!:: Toothless yelled. ::Tsefan!::

::Toothless, he's not going to just turn around and come back,:: Amethyst sighed, feeling her eyes water; every parent had fights with their children like this eventually, she knew that, but that didn't make it hurt less. ::And you know that once he's out in the woods only Hawken is going to be able to find him. He'll…he'll calm down, give him time; we'll send one of his friends to find him if he doesn't come back before this evening, okay?::

Toothless didn't want to agree; his whole body screamed at him to fly out and chase his son down, drag him back to their home and ground him somehow. But he knew his mate was right, and let out a sigh, deflating as he glanced at her. ::You're right,:: he admitted. ::I...I just don't know how we're going to get him to understand. Did he get this high-spirited attitude from you?::

::You have it more than I do,:: Amethyst teased, letting a ghost of a smile appear, ::but you know he gets it from hanging around all of us, not just his parents.:: She huffed and stood up slowly, shaking her head as she headed for the exit as well. ::Come on; with any luck the fact the Johan is in port today will bring him down sooner. You know how he is after all, got a thing for knick-knacks and new sights just like his uncles do.::

::Johan's not the only one either,:: Toothless agreed, hoping she was right as his expression lightened somewhat when they exited the cave. ::Grimligh and company are down there, probably to badger Eret about some new issue with the ship, and I saw a third vessel as we were flying in.::

::Ooh, a whole flea market in town today, how exciting. That has to draw him out eventually.::

* * *

"So you did what, exactly?"

Zipeau looked on, somewhat lost in his expression himself, as I observed the objects he'd laid out on the desk before me. "Well," he began, "in my defense it was rather late at night and despite the fact that Berk now has solar power and therefore lightbulbs that work, the time of night was getting to me. That, and…well, something was pulling me to make them, and I was working on automatic. They were finished before I actually realized I was making them."

The "them" in question was a pair of rather small, oddly designed sets of armor suits, much like the ones we wore in being a composite of Mysteel and Myscale parts, but these were a more uniform dark blue. One set was slightly larger than the other, the helmets that went along with definitely not designed for a human head, but neither any dragon I was familiar with either. Whatever purpose they were supposed to serve eluded me entirely, so I sighed and turned to Zipeau, deciding to jump to a different and more presently relevant subject.

"Well, we'll set them off to the side for now and see if the reason shows itself sometime soon," I decided. "Meanwhile, any progress on that other project you were working on? The 'traveler' apparatus, wasn't it?"

"Not as much as I'd like, but no surprise there," Zipeau admitted. "It's not like something of that magnitude and complexity is going to be finished in only a couple of months either; the software alone will probably take a year still, maybe more, and it's still a mess at the moment." He glanced out the window of the forge, toward the docks. "Not to mention Gobber and I were preparing for the traders that we were waiting to show up today; Johan and Grimligh are here and they seem to have attracted a third interested party. Care to help me take some of the wares down there, since George seems to have made himself scarce again?"

He turned and lifted up a pile of inventions, weapons, and other objects stacked into a box that had become coveted by the trading lines of the northern seas (we never traded objects of Mysteel with the general merchants though, unless we knew exactly where it was going; the risk of someone using it for the wrong purpose or making themselves a target was still too high).

I smirked and grabbed a second box of trade goods, before following the Stenonychosaurus out of the forge and down the pathway. The village was bustling with the excitement of both our return and the trade prospects below, so there was a constant stream of people flowing down the steep paths that hung off the harbor cliffs. The design of the walkways still disturbed me, but at least we'd convinced Stoick to replace the supports and handholds with Mysteel and Gronckle Iron so it was less prone to coming loose or giving way from rusting in the salt air.

Bypassing the long way down, I leapt off the edge of the path and snapped out my wings, gliding down to land in front of the conversing pair made up of Stoick and Johan. In turn, Johan's eyes widened in recognition, followed by his smile.

"Ah, Master Hawken! Good to see you again!" he exclaimed. "Stoick tells me that you and your friends were gone on another adventure this past week; you must find the time to regale me with the details."

"I'm afraid it's pushing the bar a bit to label it an adventure, Johan," I chuckled, setting down my box as Zipeau joined us, rolling his eyes at my antics. "We were helping with an insurgency problem, so just more getting shot at, the usual."

"It's more exciting than my harrowing tale of bartering with what's left of the Berserker tribe a few weeks ago," Johan returned, a moment before the glint came to his eyes that spoke of a story approaching rapidly anyway. "But there was this one fellow who had a particular eye for a Persian rug I acquired a couple of months back, but all he had to give in return was a small bucket of"-

"As exciting as that sounds, perhaps it would be best to turn out focus to present business," Zipeau cut in, garnering Johan's direct attention and hiding the collective sighs of relief from Stoick and I; the talkative image the old TV series painted of the trader was one hundred percent frighteningly accurate. "It's been some time since you were last here, and our stock of gadgets has built up quite a bit. You don't…you don't happen to have any reading materials on this round, do you?"

Johan laughed, before pointing to his ship. "Zipeau, my friend, you should know me better than that! I'd suggest you start looking now though; Fishlegs showed up a little while ago and already found the book chests."

Zipeau's eyes widened, and he immediately hurried past to find the bookworm of a Viking before everything was called for (never mind they freely shared their books half the time, there was still a sort of contest between them on who would actually own said pages).

Am amused whistle escaped Stoick, who glanced from the retreating dinosaur back to Johan. "Well, seems things are being handled well enough here, so I'm going to go and check in on our other guests," he said. "If you happen to see…" he trailed off when a pair of shadows appeared above us. "Never mind, there they are. Toothless, Amethyst, ye have any luck with your son?"

The Night Furies glided in and landed carefully, mindful not to knock over the wares that were being carefully lined up along the docks. "Afraid not," Toothless sighed. "We're hoping the trades going on down here will draw him out, but right now he's off sulking in the forest." He glanced at me with a dejected expression. "I don't think it's wise to send you after him this soon either, and I'm really hoping that we don't have to at all, but…" The question remained unsaid, but well understood.

I nodded. "If he doesn't come back before we return from the banquet this evening, I'll go and find him," I reassured. "In the meantime though, I'm going to go check out what Grimligh and Trillian brought along this round; Mediterranean spices and wares are always interesting."

"You mean your parents haven't gotten sick of your hauling bags of saffron and Italian herbs into the kitchen every few weeks?"

"Hmmm…Mom's always happy to have me cook, Dad's a chef in his own right, we've got two Instant Pots they both still fangirl over, and we've got foodstuffs that would cost hundreds of dollars if we purchased them in a store at home. Nah, don't think they're tired of it."

We continued chuckling as we sauntered over to the boat filled with Eret's compatriots. In the process however, we all missed the subtle glances we were getting from the men on the third ship, analyzing us and overhearing our conversations. Even the captain, caught up in the introductory conversation with Stoick as he was, was surreptitiously following the Night Furies with his eyes, his fingers tapping away at his side like he was typing out an unseen message.

* * *

 **A/N-Family dynamics are always unique to each their own, but every group of kin has similarities as well; there's always the child who hates being reigned in for his own good...**

 **So, what do you think? Enjoy the new youth we've gotten to meet? We will be seeing them more later on of course. How about the humor? Ruff's "destruction" comment was entirely out of thin air while I was typing and it managed to make my sister turn silent in convulsive laughter so I'm quite pleased with myself there. And, I've dropped in a couple hints here of things to come, in particular the outfits Zipeau made and the traders in town. Care to try a shot at what's coming? As always, leave your thoughts, critiques, predictions, and suggestions in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	4. Chapter 3: Fanfare and False Hands

Chapter 3

Fanfare and False Hands

/

 _Pander to the crowds_

 _Wave your careless hands_

 _Your fame and fortune last_

 _So long as interest stands_

 _Surely this withstands the test_

 _Of time and critic views_

 _But don't forget the background noise_

 _Being drowned out by the news_

 _Struggles live and grow beyond_

 _The veil in front of thee_

 _Danger blooms in darkened grounds_

 _And reach to snare the free_

 _-0-_

"Yeah, I know it's a big deal, but you guys are all going to be there already and we'll all be able to see it when the DVDs come out, so…"

Holly trailed off as she glanced toward the mountains straddling the island. I sighed and crossed my arms in response, able to read her thoughts as if she'd already said it out loud.

"People are going to expect to see you there, you know," I reminded. "For reasons that escape me entirely you have a huge fan base now. What they could possibly see in my weird sixteen-year-old sister, any ideas?"

I laughed as she scoffed and tried to shove me over, only to succeed in making me shuffle back maybe half an inch, before growing serious again.

"Plus, you know what Tsefan is like; I know he likes you, but he's not going to come out of hiding that easily. You stick around here and the best that you'll get is an evening of aimlessly wandering around the island."

"When he comes back though at least he'll have someone around to talk to, beyond his 'grandparents' that he's been alone for a week with already," Holly countered, "if he feels he needs it. Tsefan's not stupid after all, he just takes after his parents in high-spiritedness and…well, my friends all think I could be a therapist as a side job, so why not use that talent for an ailing dragon?"

She had a point, and technically I really couldn't force her to go with us either. Our attendance was not mandatory at the banquet but it was highly encouraged, and I knew my parents would rather Holly stick around Berk; one serious plus of her being in the village was that we knew there was almost no one to be concerned about there. Back home…for whatever reason, modern society seemed to produce a painfully obvious overabundance of clueless and ego-driven male teens and young adults.

Not that very many of them stayed that way after an encounter with my sister, but that's beside the point.

"Just keep a radio on if you can then, in case something comes up, alright?" I asked. "Chances are that's just me being paranoid; things are more likely to go haywire at the event, but still."

Holly snorted. "Yeah, Nara and I always have our coms on, you know that. Plus I know most of the raptors are staying here too; you're taking who, Delta and Talon? We've got plenty of ears here."

Not much to argue there, so that was wrapped up then. Holly climbed into Nara's saddle and the pair took off, presumably either to search immediately for the absent young Night Fury or to chat with Ruffnut and Fishlegs; those two had also elected to stay in the village as well, intending on having a quiet evening with their daughter.

Meanwhile, I took off back toward the portal, meeting up in my back yard with everyone who was planning on heading to the banquet. Those who had such things were dressed in relatively formal wear (Hiccup in a suit, Astrid in a surprisingly flashy blue dress under her harness and me in a suit to match Hiccup's under my usual Myscale duster, for example), and the rest just in their classic Viking attire. This was meant to be a big occasion, but a few of us showing up in that "right out of the movies" fashion was always appreciated by fans too, so Snotlout and Tuffnut had never bothered pulling themselves together to get decent formal outfits for themselves. Honestly though, I almost couldn't imagine them in such anyway.

"Motley crew we are, huh?" Hiccup joked, looking around. "Alright, everybody ready?"

"There'll be free food and an excuse to display the world's deadliest weapon," Tuffnut exclaimed, striking a pose with his arms flexed where he sat behind Cami on Stormfly. "Of course I'm ready!"

"Pfft, if anyone's a deadly weapon here it's Hawken," Stormfly admonished, enjoying watching as Tuff deflated. "You're just hot air, and I see it all leaking out now."

"Yeah, but at least it's hot air that's married to your rider," Tuff quipped back.

Cami in response turned around and clocked her husband over the head, making him yelp.

"Oh! I am hurt! I am very much hurt!"

"I'll duct tape you head to toe for the evening if I have to," Cami snapped warningly, though she couldn't hide a smirk at his antics. "Problem is, you'd probably enjoy that too much in the process."

"Oookay, " I stepped in, curbing the conversation that I feared was heading in a dangerously kinky direction. "Before this all gets any further out of hand, let's just get moving already! Delta, Talon, you're riding with Embron; Jake and Kingsley are with me; Twintail's got Sasha and Feren, right?"

"Got it!"

"Alright then, enough lollygagging and let's go!" Astrid exclaimed, Thorn turning under her and taking off with the rest of us following suit shortly after.

"In a hurry much there, Astrid?" I called out jovially. "You sure you know where we're going?"

"The Budweiser Events Center, like usual," she called back, earning a laugh from the rest of us.

* * *

The parking lot of the events center was packed to capacity, and as we landed and walked in through the private entrance designated for us (best not for the guests of honor to saunter in through the main entrance; we'd never get to our seats), we were greeted by the sight of a heavily modified banquet hall. Seating would have been greater in the actual arena, but it wasn't the best setup there for a dinner and other intended evening events. Nevertheless, every table was full to capacity.

"Ah, you showed up! Splendid!" came an enthusiastic voice to our right. We turned to find the master of ceremonies walking up to us, Christina Lara.

Christina was the mediator between us and several television networks that had taken on our series for broadcast, the story of Two Worlds Collide, and she took care of directing advertising, the deal we'd made with DreamWorks to permit both sides to share our stories (ours the documentary of our recent history, theirs the animation we were still all enthralled with), and a few other details. In fact, the entire reason for the banquet that night was our series: because it was such an unusual case, reality that seemed to have been written straight from fiction, it had gained a huge following, and we were releasing the first installment that night of the third season: Reaches of Reality. No better person then to present the night than the director of everything going on behind the scenes for us.

I smiled and held out my hand, taking Christina's outstretched palm and shaking it before she moved along to the others. "It was a bit of a tight fit; we only just got back from the Congo after all," I drawled, "but yeah, we made it."

Christina nodded, glancing around the room with satisfaction. "Biggest turnout we've had yet," she said, "almost five hundred applicants for attendance permitted through; the charity fund from this is going to be enormous."

"Who's getting the donations this year?" Ember asked.

"Boodwater Mission, Doctors without Borders, several local funds, the usual," Christina replied. "Oh, and as I'm going to announce later, the series has earned a handful of critical awards as well; nobody was quite sure what category it's supposed to be in though, since what you guys have gone though is usually relegated to fantasy, but the past is documentary fodder."

Chuckles circled the group. "Yeah, just what we need, more badges and awards," Hiccup joked. "Gee, at this rate what with those medals and honorary positions we'll need a whole room dedicated to displaying it all."

"Display? We really need to broadcast that 'yes, we did all this, look at us' some more?" I queried back lightly.

"Well, if you don't want them then I'll happily take the credit!" Snotlout piped up, puffing out his chest.

"Please, you don't need the ego boost," Delta quipped back, jabbing him in the gut with her tail.

"Oof! Okay, I'll shut up!" he wheezed.

The raptor smirked, before her eyes turned toward the people in the room, or more accurately the numerous pairs of eyes that were starting to shift our way. "Probably best if we find our own seats before we get swarmed," she warned.

"Yeah, definitely," Ember agreed, she and Orha immediately hurrying off toward the large space set aside for us. "Got my first taste of fan base people last year, don't need a repeat!"

A few minutes later, we were all settled and facing the front of the room.

"Good evening to you all, and welcome!" Christina greeted. She stood tall and poised at the podium, positioned pointedly in front of a screen depicting an artistic design we'd made for the third book/season (as it was being released in both forms). Her outfit called for the attention of the room and its respect, something very necessary to take eyes away from the dragons, dinosaurs and big cats etc. in the hall; the black sating lace dress swept down around her feet, the edges adorned in patterns of blue and silver and similarly colored clasps holding the shoulder straps contrasted starkly with her straightened auburn hair.

When she was certain most of the audience had switched their focus to her, Christina smiled wider and continued. "Thank you all for coming; it's an exciting night, with several of our featured guests in attendance for this release and representatives present for many of the organizations we are supporting or being supported by. Before dinner is served and the feature for tonight is presented, I would like to recognize some of the wonderful people we have been working with and look forward to collaborating with in the future."

As she continued with her speech, Ember gave a small smile and leaned over toward me. "So, how'd we get so lucky as to end up with such a level-headed figure for these things again?" she whispered.

"Heh, mostly just luck," I replied, "but you know Hiccup and I won't work with just anyone, certainly none of the narcissistic blowhards that like showing themselves off more than the focus they're covering. Christina's got a lot of promise."

My attention turned back toward the podium as the speech rolled on, and a few minutes later carts wheeled out into the room placing plates with the evening meal in front of each of us (or, in the dragons' cases, large bowls of fish). Once all was set out, the lights dimmed slightly and the feature on the screen changed; the first episode of the new season was beginning. I certainly remembered that adventure as if it had happened a week ago, though a twinge of regret ran through me at the realization that we had not returned to visit Caspian and company since. I made a note to remember to do so at some point.

As the infamous eastern cliffs showed up on screen however, several other emotions suddenly and inexplicably ran through me; a thrill of excitement as if something great were about to happen, a sensation as if I were in fact about to reconnect with good friends, but below that was a very strong chill that zapped my spine. Maybe it was just because I knew what was coming in the series playing out on the screen and it was dragging up memories, but I only felt that sensation when things were expected to go very, very wrong.

* * *

Night was falling rapidly, even despite Berk's northerly location, and just as Hawken had predicted Holly's search had turned up fruitless. She was very good at finding things that didn't want to be found, but Tsefan's disappearing act was among the best in the village, second only to the dragons that literally had the ability to vanish from sight.

As she and Nara made their way back across the mountains, the Nadder looked up at her rider with a questioning gaze as Holly pulled her jacket in closer to herself; Myscale may have been very good at insulating from both extreme heat and cold, but it wasn't perfect, and even in May Berk sometimes experienced snowstorms (though they were uncommon, not too unlike Holly's home Colorado).

"Ready to head back?" Nara asked softly. "You know finding a Night Fury, especially a young one, at night is going to be like tracking down a smear of black paint out on a Hawaiian lava field."

"I know, but…ugh, you know how it makes me feel when a friend or…in this case, family…isn't doing well and I can't even manage to talk to them," Holly said morosely. "Makes me feel useless."

Nara nodded. "I do, and I feel the same, don't worry. But, fruitless is still fruitless never mind how you feel about it; we'll get Natasha and company to set up a perimeter or something and let us know if he shows up again though, okay? We can at least go and help the elder Haddocks keep the other four in line."

Holly at least was able to manage a chuckle at that thought; one young Night Fury was a handful when they got rambunctious, let alone a quartet of related ones who all liked to pick on each other. The entire village was lucky that the youngsters all belonged to the same house as the Dragon Whisperer, his mother, and Stoick (who for reasons still unknown seemed to manage to have the same effect on unruly youthful reptiles as he did the villagers, and all of Berk was grateful for it).

"Sounds like a plan," the teen agreed. "But, you get to endure the tackle upon entry this time."

"What? No, they like you better!"

"Yeah, and they nearly flattened 'Auntie Holly' when we stopped by this morning already. It's 'Aunty Nara's turn this round, and besides, at least you have scales and are several times my size to help you out."

"Ugh, fine; snag me a chicken leg from the Hall later and I'll begrudgingly oblige."

"Very well, I'll see what I can do. Piggy."

"Says the girl who finally managed to convince her parents to let her eat the entire twenty-inch burrito at La Mariposa for her 16th birthday, and pulled the whole thing off too."

"Hey! It was a good burrito!"

Through their back and forth banter, the pair entirely missed the several sets of eyes watching them from below as they glided back toward the village. Darian Gremble gazed carefully, yet almost lazily through his spyglass, making sure both rider and dragon were well and truly out of detection range before turning to his men, smiling darkly. He'd had the temporary notion to try and capture them, but humans weren't readily affected by the same drugs as dragons and Holly's reputation had managed to reach even him; the girl never missed. Not to mention that, threat of harm or not, he knew there was nothing that would prevent the dragon man from ripping up the entire archipelago to find his sister. Better something that would at least keep him somewhat level-headed and at arm's length.

" _Finally,_ we can drop that stupid traders' guise," he sighed. "Alright, ship's waiting off the east shore for us with the cages ready; any dragon might do but if we can draw in the young Night Fury then that's our best chance. Ingram, start chopping the Dragonroot, and get your arrows ready Merle; the root arrows should suffice, but you have the Stingers too, correct?"

Merle nodded, setting up the bow he carried as the man next to him began pulverizing the thick greenish tuber. Almost immediately a pungent, not-quite-earthy aroma began to permeate the air. Behind them three more men pulled out and began to set up net guns and bolas from the packs they carried, just in case things went further south than they planned originally. Never good to have just a single option after all, as things often went awry.

Darian turned his eyes back toward the mountains again; according to the map his lead had given him, the little charcoal-colored dragon tended to hide himself away just to the east of Thor's peak when he had his moments (apparently they occurred often enough that even a minor ship-hand could manage to pick up on it with regularity), so with that in mind, he took the flint from his pocket and set a torch alight, hoping to further draw a pair of curious chartreuse eyes his way.

Tsefan was indeed in the area too, finally beginning to calm down from the spat earlier in the day and straighten his head out. Night time always managed to soothe him at least a little, the low light more secure to him for traveling unseen, and so as the last of the sunlight waned beyond the horizon for the few hours it would be gone he decided that he could head back. Spreading his ashen wings, he leapt up into the air and took flight from the thickly branched pine tree he'd been hiding in and glided down the mountainside. He failed to notice though the red-hued Terrible Terror from the village that had also been wandering around the mountain looking for him, and who perked up upon spotting him in the distant low light.

What Tsefan did not miss was the flickering light of a fire in the valley below him, figures that he did not immediately recognize moving around the torch. Shortly after, a ridiculously enticing aroma emanating from the location also reached his nostrils.

Ignoring the faint feeling that this was all a little bit off (helped along by the fact that he'd never been exposed to Dragonroot, and so rode with the attractive power of the herb more easily), Tsefan angled toward the flame, gliding nearly silently over the trees. It was possible someone from the village had decided to head out camping, as that happened on occasion especially among the younger members of Berk, and he was curious.

The people in the semi-clearing were definitely not from the village though, made clear once he was close enough to see their faces, and Tsefan soon concluded that they had to be from that new trading ship he'd heard mention of before he had distanced himself (he was intending to visit, but the mood for the day had quite obviously prevented it). They appeared as if they were waiting out for someone, perhaps a special trade for someone in the village; Tsefan was no stranger to the fact that occasionally Johan or Grimligh would conduct secretive barters with villagers for someone who was to receive a surprise, so why not other traders? Though, why they would pick a location that was way out here he could not fathom.

Gathering up his nerve, Tsefan finally dropped into the clearing, landing on a raised tree branch where he could see everyone there to find out exactly what was going on.

"Uh, s-sorry if I'm intruding on something, but uh, you guys aren't lost are you? Looking for someone?" he asked, cautiously noting the looks of surprise and sudden seeming satisfaction that appeared on all their faces. "No one else is generally out here at this time of night."

His ears perked up as the smiles directed his way grew wider, and a sound to his left drew his attention away from the center of the group for a moment.

"Yes, we are in fact," the man holding the torch mused, before planting it into the ground so both his hands were free. "We're looking for you."

Something whistled through the air, and Tsefan suddenly experienced a sharp pain pierce his shoulder. He screeched from the sensation and from shock, slipping off the branch and tumbling earthward to land awkwardly against the ground. Pushing himself to his feet, the young dragon spread his wings to take off again only for them to falter and fall to the ground around him, the rest of him slowly going numb from his shoulder outward. He collapsed, trying and failing to stand up, and his eyes flickered in panic from one figure approaching him to the next.

Darian strode forward, unfurling a rope in his grasp. "All the better that no one's out here to disturb us either," he toned darkly. "Means it'll be just that much easier to disappear without anyone noticing too soon, and I don't have to kill anyone yet. I was expecting this to take longer than just a few minutes too, so what a pleasant surprise. Viggo is very much looking forward to seeing you."

Tsefan's fading senses only let him open his mouth uselessly in a failed attempt to speak, and over his now singular focus on Darian he only barely picked up the sound of Scarlet screech his name, the little Terror diving in after him and furiously struggling to ignore the scent of the Dragonroot calling to her.

Darian whipped up his head however at the sound, and barked out, "Merle, another!"

The archer's crossbow fired again, and the dart sent the smaller Scarlet tumbling straight out of the sky. Darian glanced down at her, before his grin returned stronger.

"This works out perfectly, actually," he mused. "No need to waste sending an envoy for the message; we'll just send this little runt back." He picked up the now-unconscious Terror by her neck, looking over her uninterestedly before glancing back down at Tsefan, noting with satisfaction that he was now completely out as well. "Rafil, Stonetoss, tie the Night Fury up and get him ready for transport; make sure he has a muzzle on him, because I don't know how much he'll take after his mother and if he wakes up early I don't wish to find out while we're at sea what that mouth does when it goes off. Ingram, you can leave the root now; cage this one instead."

He tossed the little dragon over to the man in question unceremoniously, before reaching into a pouch on his belt and pulling out something that was frighteningly modern: a two-way radio.

"Make sure the boat's ready," Darian barked into the device. "We've got our quarry."

"Yes sir!" the crackling reply came in. "The area's clear for safe approach."

"Good."

* * *

"Well, that was a fun night; I saw Sarah there too even!" Camicazi laughed, before suddenly coughing and hacking away as she swallowed a bug, sending us all into cackles of our own. "Ack! Ugh, yuck!"

"And that made it even more fun!" Ember snickered. "Hey Cami, did it taste good?"

"Not as good as throttling you will, I can assure you," Cami growled back, spitting one last time out into the air to remove remaining parts of her impromptu snack.

"Alright, no killing each other tonight, we're back home anyway," Hiccup quipped, dropping down toward the yard with the rest of us in tow. Once the majority of the Descendants had disembarked at the house, the rest of us popped through the portal and headed off to the village.

Holly was waiting for Hiccup, Astrid, and I at the greatly-expanded Haddock household, standing up rapidly from the chair she'd been occupying as we opened the door and walking over to us, Nara in tow.

"Let me guess, you didn't manage to find him?" Toothless asked, half-sarcastically and half-downtrodden.

Holy shook her head in equal disappointment. "Nope," she admitted, "and he's not back on his own yet either, which is concerning. But he is going to be mad that he missed the new traders though; they left a little while before evening set in."

At this note, all eyes swiveled over to me, and I sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll head out," I huffed. "Shouldn't take me too long so long as he didn't decide to wander too far off from his usual haunts. Hey, Holly, Stoick and Valka still up?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, didn't see them in here with you and the young ones there," I said, eyes roaming over the pile of sleeping reptiles off in one corner, "and I wanted to talk to them about something that happened tonight. Probably no issue, but I had an off feeling, and now I wonder if it might have had something to do with Tsefan being out later than usual."

Holly's eyebrows quirked upward. "Oh, you too? Had a chill earlier tonight after we failed to locate the no-show, thought it was because I couldn't manage to find him; kind of odd that it wasn't just me though."

The room quieted, and we glanced at each other for a moment before I shook it off and turned toward the door. "Maybe it's residual discomfort, or linked to the tie I have with the Descendants," I mused. "Probably just us being paranoid as usual; Lord knows Tsefan causes it often enough for me and Toothless. Be back hopefully soon, with one more Night Fury in tow."

Yeah, little did I know just how long that night was actually going to be.

* * *

 **A/N-I feel like this one was written a bit awkwardly, but best I could manage; at least now we can start moving on to things a little more exciting. Though, there will be one more chapter before things really start to get rolling, as next chapter we're going to be getting familiar with a couple new, but very important faces that'll be tagging along; if you are familiar with the FB Two Worlds Collide page, you might already have an idea who it is.**

 **Anyway, as always let me know your thoughts, predictions, critiques etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	5. Chapter 4: Distant Ties

**A/N-Just a heads-up, we're taking quite a jump away from our original main cast here, but for good reason; everything has an effect eventually, and a few books back there's one in particular that hasn't really come up yet. Not to mention, we have some new friends to get to know...**

* * *

Chapter 4

Distant Ties

/

 _Friends aren't always near at hand_

 _Sometimes they're from afar_

 _They're not always those you already know_

 _Rather souls reflecting who you are_

 _Strangers at a glance_

 _Yet somehow you've always known_

 _When they found you they would lend a hand_

 _Just as you will lend your own_

 _-0-_

The soft, rapid rhythmic sound of two very different sets of padded paws tapped its way through the greening field; the chase was well on its way.

Emerald eyes focused solely, almost laser-like, on their quarry, hints of exhaustion beginning to build but ignored at the present. This was not the time to give in; this time he was going to win, and there would be nothing that would mess that up again if he had anything to say about it. Tricks had worked for a period (despite he being the master of mischief), but they were all options exhausted eventually, and he knew them all now.

A flash of grey showed itself only momentarily through the tall grass blades as the target changed course, kicking up puffs of dirt and vegetation as she sped across the meadow, dropping to all fours to gain speed. The red-orange blur following behind mimicked his target a moment later, also going quadrupedal; he would not lose sight of her, not again. Too much rode on it to lose focus.

Grass and flowers raced by in the periphery, a line of trees and low branches looming ahead. The forest would bring in a whole new set of challenges that he would almost certainly fail at overcoming, and they both knew it. Catch her before she reached the thicket; that was his best, and possibly last, chance.

With a snarl, the fox put on an extra burst of speed and leapt, paws outstretched as he arced through the air. The rabbit in front of him glanced back just a second before contact with wide eyes, and she shifted ever so slightly to the side and out of the trajectory of her pursuer.

His eyes widened and he flailed, reaching desperately to the side to try and catch her, but the rabbit only ended up using his outstretched paw as a springboard, vaulting away with ease and leaving him to crash into the dirt in a comical blunder. The fox wasn't going to give in that easily though, rolling with his momentum and spinning around with the last of the tumble. He let out a frustrated huff as he took off again in the new trajectory, watching with dismay as the rabbit disappeared under the closest line of juniper bushes trailing the edge of the forest. He ducked his head as he followed, sliding right underneath the shrubs and bursting out the other side, whipping his head around to try and find out where the rabbit went.

That was where it all fell apart. He skidded to a halt, confusion coloring his face as he neither saw her anywhere ahead nor managed to pick up even a trace of her scent trail leading off in any direction from where he stood.

"HA!"

"Aaaaahhhh!"

A pair of large gray feet collided with his side from above, sending the fox rolling both from the momentum and the shock of the attack. As he came to a halt on the ground, those two same feet came to rest directly on his chest, knocking the air out of him and signaling the end of the chase and his loss of the challenge.

Not that he was entirely put out though, looking up to find a pair of amethyst eyes staring down at him smugly, one large left foot tapping away in amusement against his sternum.

"So, that's what, fifteen-nothing this week?" the rabbit drawled in amusement. "Guess that means your turn, again, to pick up the goods from the market tomorrow, what a shame. It's a really good thing you don't like rabbits, Nick, as you'd never manage to catch one anyway."

"Ha ha, fine, you win," Nick wheezed, trying to suck in the oxygen he'd been so thoroughly deprived of. "Though it's not really fair; you've had a lot more training than me. Now, can you –cough!- can you get off so I can breathe again?"

The rabbit chuckled and jumped off, sending the air out of Nick's lungs again for a moment, before wiping smudges off the blue-gray shirt and deep blue pants she wore as best she could and offering her paw. Nick took it gratefully and stood up himself, wiping off his own bright green shirt and tan pants once he was upright and shaking his head.

"You know Judy, the test this time was supposed to be a speed run, not you turning me into a boxing bag; doesn't that kind of negate the bet?"

"That was so long as we were still in the meadow, remember?" Judy quipped unrepentantly. "You were too slow, so I made it to the forest and the rules change here."

"Sounds more like a certain competitive bunny is making up rules as she goes. And if that's the case, the fox has decided on one of his own new rules." A devious smirk spread across Nick's face, reflected by widening eyes on Judy's. "Sweet revenge for using my chest as a footrest."

Judy took on the appearance of a deer in headlights. "No," she warned, "no, Nick, don't you dare-!"

That was all she got out before the fox pounced, grabbing her sides and tickling her mercilessly.

"Aaahh! Ha ha ha, stop it! Stop ahha ha ha ha ha! Nooo!"

"Sorry Carrots, not my fault someone spilled the secret that you were ticklish!"

"No, it's hahaha- it's my mother's fault! Not fair!"

They tussled and rolled through the short grass for several minutes before falling onto their backs, breathing hard as they looked up at the sky. The blooming trees of spring framed a crystal atmosphere dotted by a mere handful of wispy white clouds, sailing by on the gentle breeze that rustled the leaves and flowers around them. Faint traces of raspberry and currant blossoms rode the wind, and a calm silence fell, almost enough to make one want to drift off to sleep. The pair lay there, content to let the moment hang for a time and just enjoy their mutual company.

Not that it would last forever of course. Curious as she always was, Judy turned her head and broke the silence, asking, "You ever wonder about what else is out there, Nick? Beyond Narnian borders, I mean?"

Nick glanced over at her, eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?"

"Like, have you ever wanted to travel beyond this place, see what it's like, who lives there? I'm sure there are tons of interesting things to discover, and for someone like you plenty of places to barter and bargain for stuff you don't need."

The fox leaned back again, pursing his lips. "Not sure if I want to be offended by that last bit or not," he joked. "But, eh, well, most of my life not really. I mean, when the Telmarines were a problem we all just had a focus on survival after all, and then after that was over I was still mostly concerned with hustling my way along, what with the stigma everyone gives foxes and all."

He grinned, turning his head to regard his companion again. "And then this funny little gray ball of fuzz fell into my life and turned it upside down and…yeah, okay so since then the thought's crossed my mind once or twice, but not something I've thought hard about. There's been enough change in my life already I'm still getting used to everything new. Why are you asking though?"

Judy shrugged. "Restless mind I guess; best excuse I can give. You know me, never been one to be content with the status quo"-

"Gee, you don't say."

The rabbit shot him a glare before continuing. "-and, well, what with our positions and how this mystery we've got going is unrolling, I'm starting to wonder if the answer is actually going to be found around here. We busted Bellwether and her Calormen gang, but there's still a trade going out from there somewhere –I still don't know how they manage to navigate those straits- so the end of the line might be a lot further away."

"Well, Fluff, if it comes to that we'll deal with it then I guess," Nick mused, before pushing himself up. "But in the meantime, and you must be rubbing off on me to say this, probably best if we head in, Carrots. Caspian's back, which means Reepicheep is around the castle again, and _that_ means Buffalo Butt is going to be hard up to impress again. I'm all for procrastination, but I'd rather not be late today of all days."

Judy tutted as she jumped up. "What's this? Blueberries being responsible for once in his life? What have you done with my fox?"

"Oh, so I belong to you now?"

"Yeah, I'll show you the certificate of purchase when we get back to Cair Paravel."

"Is it titled after my favorite food too?"

"You titled me after the rabbit stereotype, only fair."

Chuckles followed both of them as they sauntered off through the woods. Several minutes later the pair emerged from the forest and onto a well-worn village pathway. Narnia had developed rapidly over the previous years, both human and animal populations beginning to mix together with homesteads both naturalistic in design and more artificial abutting each other. Inventions inspired by the sporadic visits of the Pevensie family and the occasional tools and ideas they brought with had begun modernizing the civilization that had developed, and the unique effects of the animalian three-fourths of the inhabitants showed in the interesting adaptations said inventions often took on.

They were a long ways off from automotive travel or complex electrical appliances of course, but some creative individuals had already begun experimenting with simple motors and electro-conductive elements. Narnia, therefore, stood a good chance of being the first civilization in the world to catch up with ours (aside from the Vikings who had direct access to such technology).

The village was only one of many that had developed over the region, but it was by far the largest and held the most diverse population. Situated alongside the mouth of one of the larger rivers and already beginning to divide itself into sections reflecting the preferences of differing animal and human habitat origins, one could not doubt it was the unofficial capital of the country. Standing above it all too, at the edge of the ocean and at the heights of the bluffs that rose above it, were the now fully restored towers of Cair Paravel, still serving as one of the grand symbols of Narnia. The castle itself had begun to change though, in no small part due to King Caspian's endeavors and aspirations; realizing he would not be able to direct every happening in the nation on his own, Caspian had begun organizing specialized cabinets and offices to deal with needs that had become apparent. One of the larger offices, and unsurprisingly also taking up basically its own building attached to the side of the castle itself, was that responsible for upholding law and order.

Nick walked up to the door of the offshoot housing the police force, pulling it open and slipping through before smirking at Judy's indignant squeak as said door closed rapidly in front of her, bopping her in the nose.

"Yeah, thanks for the chivalry, Nick!" she snapped, shoving it open and catching up with him, rubbing her nose.

The fox glanced over his shoulder, grin still in place. "What, I thought you were an independent bunny!"

"Independent and appreciating a respectful holding of a door are two _independent_ factors, you smug vulpine."

Bouncing up next to him, she landed a punch to his arm as they both sauntered up to the secretary's desk. The somewhat oversized-for-his-species cheetah occupying the seat behind said desk looked up as they approached, and his eyes lit up at the sight of the pair as he dropped the stack of papers he'd been holding.

"Nick! Judy!" he squealed. "I was almost worried you guys would be late for your check-ins!"

"Nah, you know we'd never do that Ben!" Nick replied sardonically. "Besides, off the job training would be a good excuse to be late, right?"

"Sure, if you wanted to call that training," Judy quipped.

Nick looked at her in mock horror, putting a paw against his chest. "Oh, you wound me Carrots. That how it's going to be?"

"Yes, yes it will be."

Ben chuckled as his eyes followed the back-and-forth, tail flicking in sync in amusement behind him. "Gee, you two banter like an old married couple, you know that?" he mused, resting his face on his fists.

Both rabbit and fox paused and sent glares at him, before Nick leaned against the desk. "Point the finger somewhere else Spots, nothing doing here," he dismissed. "You get any notices on leads for the smuggling ring yet, or are we still working in the dark?"

The cheetah's expression fell as he turned in his seat, straining to reach down for something in a file cubby nearby (a simple task made rather more difficult due to the cat's larger than normal physique). "No, afraid not," he said quietly, laying out a folded set of papers in front of him (Nick noted in passing that these appeared to have a more uniform block writing than most of the sheets he was used to, a result of the type-writing apparatus they'd adopted from their other-world friends). "Trufflehunter's been trying to dig through clues but nothing's come up. You two are still our best eyes. Oh, and speaking of which, uh," he looked up for a moment, distracted by another young cheetah that padded by on her way to the records hall (not that one could blame him; Delmaria was an odd one, with extremely pale, thick fur and large spots that made many believe she somehow had snow leopard in her ancestry; they'd be right too. Clawhauser's eyes always lingered a little longer than most however), "Chief wanted to see you two this morning. Something important came up apparently concerning the case that only he knows about."

"Guess we'd better go grab our uniforms then," Judy piped up, turning to hop down the hall before stopping and glancing in the direction the female cheetah had gone. Then, her look turned to Ben, a smirk that seemed taken directly off of Nick's muzzle plastered on her own. "Oh, and before you try and poke fun at Nick and I, you really ought to mammal up and talk to Delmaria already, hm?" she mused. "I know she likes you too; she's told me as much."

Nick couldn't help but laugh at the flabbergasted look the pudgy cat took on as fox and rabbit walked away, a blush certainly hidden under his fur. "Gee, if I didn't know better I would have thought that entirely unlike you," Nick mused to his partner as they walked to their abutting cabinets, opening them and pulling out their uniforms, preparing to slip them on over the clothes they already wore.

Judy shrugged as she fidgeted with the buttons on her second shirt. "Everybody knows they keep casting eyes at each other, but nothing's happened yet," she drawled. "I think they need a push."

"Well, you can push them; I'll just laugh at the stumbles you get"-

"Hopps! Wilde!"

The two officers jerked in surprise, turning to see their supervisor walking toward them with intent, his usual stern expression on his face. Reepicheep had long been considered head of Narnian security and armed forces under Caspian, but the mouse was almost never found away from the man so as to keep the country's head safe, so he had nominated a second in command to overlook happenings around the main settlements of Narnia.

That second came in the form of Adrian Tavaloss Bogo, a Narnian Cape buffalo with a hardened attitude and no-nonsense approach that served him well in maintaining order (though it often put him at odds with a certain sarcastic fox). Like many other Narnian mammals the buffalo was somewhat anthropomorphized, preferring to stand on his hind legs and his hooves were more flexible than other distant species. After nearly two millennia, the unique conditions of the inhabitants of the land had resulted in not all, but most of the sentient species at least beginning to develop very differently from their natural counterparts: larger size, longer lifespans and unique tactile traits.

This of course left him towering over the similarly bipedal fox and rabbit that he approached, the two of them wincing in expectation of being lectured for some new infraction of minor rules.

"Look, Chief, if this is about the pebbles mixed in with the pine nuts last week"- Nick began, before the buffalo waved his hoof in dismissal at the quip.

"I was going to say you weren't in trouble, but now I realize I should have known you were involved in that incident," he huffed, glaring at the fox that was now smiling nervously. "But, this is not concerning your shenanigans. Caspian wishes to talk to you both, in my office. Don't worry about your uniforms at the moment."

"Caspian?" Judy asked softly.

Bogo nodded. "Seems you've gained some higher attention," he affirmed. "Come with me."

Abruptly he turned away again, marching off down the hall. Nick and Judy shared a perplexed look, before shrugging and placing their uniforms back into the cabinets they'd previously been stored in and hurrying after the buffalo.

Bogo's office was not large or flashy by any means, as he had requested it for functionality above all else, but it was more than large enough still to house several chairs, one of which the lapine and vulpine shared as they sat down. Bogo, too, took a seat behind his desk, staring at the doorway impassively as they waited, ignoring the fidgeting of the energetic pair of officers in front of him. They didn't have to wait long, of course.

"Good, they showed up on time," Caspian's voice rang from the door, prompting both Nick and Judy to jump up and spin around at attention. On the king's shoulder was Reepicheep, the mouse holding himself poised as ever as the two stepped into the room.

"Your majesty," Judy said politely, giving a slight bow before elbowing Nick to do the same.

Caspian laughed at the display. "No need for that my friends," he appeased. "I'm here on behalf of someone else as well, and as a friend."

"Yes, you two have developed quite a reputation for yourselves," Reepicheep continued, looking particularly at Judy. "And I for one am glad my good word paid off for letting you in the forces. Your actions over the past couple of years have managed to catch the notice of someone very important."

"Well thank you sir," Nick replied, "but surely doing our jobs isn't really cause for anything special, is it?"

"Hmm, from what Tavaloss has told me you two do more than just 'your jobs' while out and about, so I think you deserve some special recognition as well," Caspian mused, smiling, "acting as if still at work even when off duty, but thus I'm still here for something besides just that."

Fox and rabbit shared another glance, eyebrows rising. "I'm, uh, not following," Nick finally said flatly.

"The best things rarely start out with a clear explanation," a new, resonant voice from the hall answered him. Every eye swung in the direction of the doorway, and Caspian stepped aside to allow the newcomer room to enter.

There was not a soul in Narnia who hadn't at least heard of him, who didn't know about the hand he'd been allowed to play in the origin of the Narnian races, though only a handful could claim actually having met him.

Nick and Judy immediately both dropped to one knee out of respect as he stepped in. "Aslan," Judy whispered in muted awe; Nick remained in stunned silence beside her.

The lion chuckled warmly as he passed the door frame, his mane ruffling slightly as he padded up to the pair. "Rise," he said, "for you have earned my respect as well; we are equals in more ways than we are not after all. Kneeling is reserved for appointed kings and the King of all; I'm merely a messenger."

"W-with all due respect sire, Narnian animals owe their existence to you," Judy returned slowly as they stood up. "The gifts you have were what allowed this to come about, that have helped save this country before more times than I could count."

Aslan let out another soft laugh, brown eyes shining in amusement as his deep voice bounced through the room. "Perhaps if you choose to look at it this way, but I would not have gifts if it weren't for the one responsible for all things, after all, and I am not the only one with gifts," he reminded. "You have gifts as well, even if not in the same 'grand' manner, and you have both prevented Narnia from falling apart just a few years ago, so do not sell yourselves short.

"And, you are the reason I am here today," he continued. "I've received a message to pass on, and an opportunity to grant you both if you so choose to take it." His expression grew notably more serious at this. "For several months you two have been working to solve a problem with an immoral smuggling operation that has been enacted through Calormen country and further south, and no doubt at this point you both are coming to the conclusion that the end of that line is not going to be found in this land."

The fallen expressions of the duo confirmed this was the case, and Aslan nodded. "The eastern mountains separate us from most of the civilized world," he explained, "but Narnia has its ends, and with them access beyond the mountains. There are other societies out there that know of this place, though few, and nowhere is ever truly isolated. If you want to end the trade the Calormen people have developed that has risked so many animals and people here and possibly beyond our borders, you will have to leave Narnia to do so. And, you will need help there just as you have here with your coworkers. In return, you have the opportunity to help others who desperately need it."

"But something like this could take months, years even!" Judy piped up. "It took months to uncover this ring, and it could take just as long to track down whoever they're working with in the rest of the world! And…h-how would we even be able to travel? I am not a sailor, and though we're friends with the Griffins I doubt Lightfeather and company would be very willing to ferry us around as we please."

"My friends, you worry over the details too much," Aslan chided calmly. "Travel is not a concern; I will take you to meet those you will be working with. Helping them will be a priority for you however, as it takes trust to earn trust and they will soon be in need of very skilled detectives. But yes, you may be away for a very long time; no good thing comes without time and work. This is why it is your choice if you wish to take this on; I will not force you to go, but I remind you the fight will never end here if the cause is not uprooted there."

"Ah, well, since you seem to know a lot about whatever it is you're wanting to throw us into, I just have a couple of quick questions," Nick finally spoke up, his shock gone and replaced with skepticism and irritation he didn't bother to hide. "First up, why isn't it that you lend a paw, if you know who needs help?"

"I am a steward of Narnia, Nicholas," Aslam replied with measured calm; as long as he'd been around, it would take far more than attitude from a fox to put him off. "As such, I am bound by my responsibilities to remain in this region to help care for it, which I will remind you encompasses far more than this land we stand on now. As well," he added with a touch of humor, "you may notice that I do not have the paws for delicate work like you and your partner do." He held up one massive golden paw, proving his point and earning a stifled snicker from Judy at Nick's expense.

Nick pursed his lips, debating on whether or not he ought to make a remark toward that in return, but decided it would be wiser not to antagonize the lion that everyone held in reverence. Instead, he ventured his second question. "Alright, who then is it that you expect us to be hamming it up with? No offense to pigs."

This time Caspian answered. "I'm sure you all heard of the adventure we had on the Dawn Treader years ago, before the Wildwood fiasco, yes?" At their nods he continued. "If what I am told is understood correctly, the dragon riders I came to befriend on that trip will be your companions. Apparently they're about to run into some rather large difficulties." He looked to Aslan for confirmation, and the lion nodded.

Judy's eyes widened, followed by Nick's, and the former's face split into an excited smile. "The dragon riders?" she exclaimed. "And a chance to finally solve this stupid case? Alright, I'm ready to go!" Then she looked to Nick, whose eyes were still wide, but his expression was pensive rather than excited. "Nick? You okay?" she asked carefully.

Nick blinked, before looking down at her, cautious smile appearing as he settled one of his usual masks in place. "Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine Carrots," he said. "But, uh…not sure if I'm comfortable with this if I'm honest. I…I know you've always been a go-getter, and heck we talked about traveling just this morning even. But…" he trailed off, unspoken questions and concerns hanging in the air.

Judy's face fell, and a different conviction from her prior decision popped up within her; this wasn't something she'd do alone, ever. "Well," she began, "I certainly won't go without you if you don't want to take this on; it might be doing good, but I can't do as much without you, I know that already. We have a choice, right?" She looked at Aslan again.

"Yes," he replied, "but events will begin to unfold very quickly, very soon, and you will have to make your decision by day's end."

Silence fell for a moment as the officers contemplated the situation.

Finally Judy spoke up again. "How about we visit your mother, ask what she thinks about this," she said to Nick. "She's got a level head, never steered you wrong even if you don't always listen."

"Yeah, bad influences were my father's job," Nick snarked, earning a jab in the ribs from Judy. "Ow! You're gonna leave a permanent bruise there, you know that? Okay, yeah, we can go ask for her opinion." He looked up at Aslan. "Can we, uh, get back to you in a few hours?"

"Of course," the lion answered evenly. "You will find me here when you return."

Nick nodded, before he and Judy hopped off their chair and, giving one more quick bow to Caspian out of compulsion, walked out of the room.

Once they were gone, Bogo let out a huff of indecision. "I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse getting possible time away from those two," he muttered. "They are two of the best officers we have under Reepicheep and I, so it will be hard filling that absence, but I've yet to have a day where they haven't given me a splitting headache from their antics either."

Caspian and Reepicheep both laughed, the former glancing between the door and the buffalo. "You could use a bit of loosening up, so maybe they're good for you," he chuckled. "We'll probably never fully be rid of them anyway, present or not, but, uh…someone else in this room has alluded that they might not consider this place to be where they belong for much longer, either."

"No," Aslan affirmed. "Together they're something far more than just what Narnia needs. The Lord's hand moves in unexplainable ways often, but the conditions He sets are never wrong. Those two share more in common with the Riders than any of us will likely ever come to realize."

* * *

Though he had long since moved out, and then later into a shared estate with Judy a couple years before present, Nick still on occasion considered the old Wilde homestead to be his own.

It had never been large or flashy (especially what with it having its foundations laid at a time when Narnian animals were still considered to be pests to the invading Telmarine army, never mind the continued stigma against foxes following that), but it was a place that was quaint and inviting in appearance, the hardened wooden walls and sloped roof tucked evenly into the trees echoing at once both an animal's burrow and something akin to a woodsman's cottage.

The house was not situated terribly far from the main village, and so it took very little time for the pair to reach the abode. Nick took the lead, sauntering up the worn dirt path with Judy in tow. He paused for a moment on the front step, as if questioning this all over again, but as Judy came up beside him with an expectant, encouraging glance, he reached up and knocked carefully on the carved hardwood door.

Moments later a distinct shuffling could be heard inside as someone approached, before locks turned and the door swung open. The resident had her mouth open already in preparation for some form of practiced greeting, before it was replaced by an ecstatically pleased smile at the sight of her present company.

"Nicky! How nice of you to visit your aging mother!" she exclaimed in partial sarcasm (Judy knew where Nick got it from). "And you brought your partner with you!"

"Hi Mom," Nick replied with a smile, stepping forward and accepting the clearly mandatory embrace from the older fox.

Vivian Wilde nearly matched her son in height, but bore lighter colored ears and paws and a white-tipped tail compared to him, and looked out at the world through warm golden-brown eyes as opposed to Nick's bright green. Her several decades of life showed through in the faint but noticeable graying on her snout and paws, as well as her slimmer figure, but her movements and the confidence she held herself with belied a healthy fox who kept herself busy and in top shape.

Her stern yet warm smile remained on Vivian's face as she partially broke her hug to reach behind Nick and grab hold of Judy's paw, drawing the rabbit into the embrace as well. "Now don't be shy Miss Hopps, hugs are mandatory here; you know I won't bite," she joked. "Can't say the same for my son, but I think you know how to handle him already don't you?"

"Mom!"

Vivian laughed at her son's protest and at the way the two immediately pulled away, blushes only hidden by fur (though Judy's ears darkened visibly, and she failed to hide them away from sight in her fluster). Then she gestured welcomingly into the house.

"Come in now, no point leaving the door open to draft," she insisted. "I'll get some tea, and you can tell me why you've come to visit."

"What, your son and his friend can't just drop by unannounced every now and then?" Nick drawled, following his mother into the house and then back into the kitchen with Judy in tow still trying to fight off her embarrassment. He and Judy sat down at the dining table as Vivian laughed, opening a cabinet and drawing out a couple of small cloth bags filled with herbs.

"I know you, Nicholas," she admonished. "You're not the type. Not to mention you may have gotten much of your smooth talking talent from your father, but you got your people-reading skills from me."

Setting a small metal kettle on the impressively modern wood stove, Vivian then turned and took her own seat facing her visitors and folding her paws. A couple of moments of half-awkward silence passed before her stern smile began to soften into something a bit more inviting to match the rest of her pose, a look she'd perfected to get others to open up; her son wasn't the only visitor she had on occasion, and even her other friends needed to get things off their chests when they insisted they didn't.

"Now," she began, "what does bring you two out here today? Chasing a lead and stopped by to see if I know anything though the grapevine, or needing advice? I am sure you are very busy still what with that smuggling ring still active, so just setting aside time in the middle of the day isn't like either of you."

Judy's eyes widened more than Nick's did. "Wait, you know about that?" she exclaimed. "I thought we had that under wraps at the moment."

"Not everything can be kept from the general public, Judy," Vivian tutted. "Plus, while many of the stereotypes out there may be undeserved, we foxes are admittedly very good at uncovering things that others don't want seen, however unintentionally. It's how Nick's father so often got into trouble all those years ago." Her eyes met Nick's, and they shared something between a smirk and a bittersweet smile for a moment, much to Judy's chagrin, before Nick sighed and the atmosphere tensed.

"Actually," he began, "we did come here for advice, or at least I did; Judy came for support since she basically already made her decision."

Vivian's eyes widened, as if she knew what was coming somehow, and she held up a paw for a moment to steep the tea bags in the kettle and grab mugs out, before bringing her gaze back to wait for Nick to continue expectantly, almost anxiously.

"We were called in by the chief today," Nick explained, "to meet with Caspian. Or, at least that's what it started as. Turns out it was actually a certain ancient lion who wanted to see us."

He immediately noticed the look in Vivian's eyes shift; apparently that wasn't what she was expecting to hear, which confused him a bit. But she let out a gasp of surprise, eyes brightening anyway. "Aslan wanted to speak with you?" she exclaimed. "I knew you two were doing an incredible job, but I never thought it would manage to garner his attention; what did he say?"

"He had another of those famed cryptic wise moments of his," Nick replied. "One of those 'he knows things but doesn't tell you how' that people like Caspian talk about; apparently he's picked up on the fact that our case probably has its ends well past Narnia's borders, so if we want to solve it then we may have to leave. Bigger issue though, Aslan said he had…well, I'm guessing like a vision or premonition, but he didn't specify, that Judy and I ought to be helping the dragon rider friends that Caspian and Reepicheep came to acquire years ago with a problem they're facing in the process. Either way, the lion basically told us that our future plans should not entail staying in Narnia anytime soon."

Vivian nodded, pursing her lips as she stood up to pour the tea. She remained quiet as she handed the mugs to Nick and Judy, and setting down with her own, eyes flickering between the officers as she processed what Nick had said. Soon though, she appeared to come to a conclusion, a soft smile appearing again.

"So, she began slowly, looking to Judy, "what I'm reading from you is that you are prepared to be adventurous and take a chance for the better, Judy, but you are still here because you are waiting to hear of your partner's decision on the matter." At Judy's slight nod Vivian turned fully to Nick, who anxiously fidgeted with his mug. "And my quick-witted but worldly cautious son wanted to gain a second opinion before he made another life-changing decision. Am I close there?"

"Closer than I'd normally like to admit," Nick muttered, ears folding back.

Vivian chuckled. "Oh Nicky, you've kept yourself independent for years now and you lived off your wits, however distastefully, for nearly as long, until your girlfriend pulled you straight." She saw the rising protest at that label coming from both of them, and so held up a hand. "This is a decision you can make for yourself, and I don't think you actually have an issue with leaving Narnia, do you," she said pointedly, her smile turning into a hard stare at her son. "There's something else that's holding you back."

"But we could be gone for months, maybe even a year or two or"-

"And? Judy is ready to go, and I'm sure her family will be accepting as she has been forward with her interests all her life, and you have nothing holding you back," Vivian quipped pointedly. "No reason to be idle, Nicky; better to take what God gives you and run with it when you can."

Nick nodded, but his expression didn't change, only taking a pensive sip of his tea. "What about you though?" he finally asked quietly.

"Vivian's smile fell at this. "Oh," she said, "I see. After all those years you spent avoiding me because you thought I'd beat your tail for your actions –I guess you weren't entirely wrong there though- and now that you're in a position that makes you behave you have developed a concern for your poor mother?"

That certainly didn't sit well with Nick, and his eyes flashed as he prepared a retort. He didn't get the chance to say it though.

"Nicholas," Vivian said, interrupting him, "you don't have to worry about me. You know I have no intention of going anywhere for a long time; I still have plenty of years left in these bones, and I've made friends the past few years and we all look out for each other; times aren't like fifteen or twenty years ago after all. And if you think that I'm going to be abandoned, forget it; that you showed up today proves well enough that you don't want to just run off without letting me know about it now. We had our issues before, and those are past; I'm proud of you, of where you've taken yourself, and I won't let you just sit around here and worry when you have another opportunity, an adventure ahead that you should be grabbing onto full force either."

The smile returned to the vixen's face and Vivian looked to Judy. "You drag him with you if you have to, hear?" she joked. "I can't thank you enough for what you've already done for him, but we can't stop now, can we?"

Judy's eyes widened slightly at the compliment, before her giddy and mischievous smile returned as well, mirroring the female fox's. "Yes ma'am," she agreed. "Come on Nick, you can't give this up, can you? Not like anything can go too wrong so long as we're working together."

"Oh sure, jinx the whole thing why don't you Carrots," Nick quipped, but his smile was growing. "Alright, you've got me; can't deny the wishes of both of the most important girls in my life I guess, especially if one of them is going to tan my tail if I don't."

"Absolutely," Vivian shot back with a grin.

Nick laughed and stood up, setting down the now empty mug in his hand. "Thanks Mom. I guess best we go and grab a few things since we'll be away for a while Carrots, and you might want to send a letter to Bonnie so she doesn't freak out."

"More like my father; alright, I know, so let's go then."

Judy jumped up, turning for the door, before spinning around and running to Vivian, this time being the one to drag _Nick_ in for the embrace. "Thanks for helping me convince him," the rabbit said softly.

"My pleasure," the vixen responded, before letting go and moving to push them toward the door. "Now go, go go go, no time to waste!"

As the two trotted down the path away from the house, Vivian watched them from the porch, leaning against the doorframe and letting out a knowing chuckle as she waved. "Oh, those two," she mused to herself. "Inseparable, adorable; I'll bet no more than a month or two before they finally figure each other out."

* * *

 **A/N- So, it's been a while since we visited this particular continent; nothing more than quips here and there about Aslan's involvement. But a place that large simply can't have no effect on the rest of the world.**

 **I'm sure if you've been to the Two Worlds Collide FB page, or looked through any of the photos on my Flickr account as I've mentioned in the past, you probably saw this coming. But, hope you like the new additions to the story anyway. Additionally, you can find a new sketch of these two in their full Rider outfits on the FB page, in a scene from a chapter to come later. As always, let me know your thoughts, critiques, predictions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Also, one last thing: updates may be coming a bit slower (every 3 weeks) for a while thanks to a new life adjustment: I'm working painfully early mornings on a new job, so my schedule has been thrown out of whack. I'll try to keep up with my original goal, but can't make promises at the moment. Patience appreciated :)**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	6. Chapter 5: Unexpected Allies

**A/N-I sincerely apologize for the wait being this long folks; life has been hectic and crammed to the top with changes recently. I had hoped this would have at least been out this past Sunday, but that clearly didn't happen. Hopefully this being a longer chapter helps make up for it...**

* * *

Chapter 5

Unexpected Allies

/

 _When things slip from your iron grasp_

 _And you see how weak you are_

 _It's hard to hope for any good_

 _To arise from near or far_

 _Wandering alone and lost_

 _Missing a peaceful heart_

 _You know that you've been played a fool_

 _Defeated in a familiar art_

 _Those low points are when you need it most_

 _Your hand another to hold_

 _To lift you back up onto your feet_

 _New friends to fight enemies old_

 _-0-_

Darian checked almost lazily through his spyglass and nodded satisfactorily at what he found before folding the little device up and slipping it away; Viggo's personal vessel was just visible in the distance, and would be pulling up alongside his soon. Though they wouldn't transfer the cargo before they reached a port (dropping the most valuable bargaining chip they'd ever had into the ocean because of an unexpected swell or misplaced foot was not an option), Darian knew the master hunter wanted to personally inspect his quarry first. After all, this was the first young Night Fury anyone beyond the friends of Berk had seen in more than twenty years.

"All hands to their stations!" he yelled, stepping away from the railing and grabbing onto a loose mainstay rope, pulling it taut again before securing it. "Adjust heading to 30 degrees north, stall the rudder and slack the sail to reduce speed! Prepare for adjoinment!"

The ship came alive as men rushed around in obedience, carrying out their duties to prepare for the rapidly nearing ship. Darian meanwhile smoothed over his hair and tried to make himself look as presentable as possible. The effects of salt spray and the long hours since he'd last managed to bathe made this difficult, but this would be the first time he was actually going to meet Viggo face to face, and the lower-ranked hunter was set on ensuring that he would make a good first impression on his superior in every way he could (short of sucking up; he knew that would never work anyway, and hated doing so). After all, everyone knew the rumors that ran through the Coalition: those who failed Viggo didn't often last long unbranded, or even alive oftentimes, and only one man had ever actually escaped the punishment for an ultimate betrayal unscathed (and that was only because he was now a close friend of the infernal dragon riders themselves).

The second ship soon pulled in alongside Darian's vessel, and hooks and ropes were deployed across the rails to lock the two together before a plank was extended across, welcoming its visitors. While Darian's current ship was unimpressive save for its size, designed after all as a cargo hold or false trading ship rather than a symbol, Viggo's galleon was a far sleeker design, built to withstand even most dragon attacks and adorned with intricate carvings and stylizations made to awe and intimidate. Upon the sides flowed the visual stories of the accomplishments of the Grimborn line and they were nothing to laugh at, and the prow of the ship bore the top half of a Nightmare's skull, a grisly calling card and a warning to any potential adversaries.

Darian's gaze only briefly lingered on these details though, before the figure approaching the connecting gangplank took up his full and undivided attention. Viggo was adorned as he always was, a slick suit-like set of clothes in fine cloth and leather, with a metal-plated leather vest and shoulder pads, weapons hanging from his back and belt with an odd sort of balance. There was an uneasy grace to his presentation, one that almost epitomized the man's intentions.

"I must admit I received your call far sooner than I would have expected," Viggo said with a faint smile, stepping on board with his brother right behind him. He did not offer a hand to shake, only a curt nod as he surveyed the ship. "I take it this means you were successful very early on in your assignment and not simply here to tell me you were somehow run off, correct?"

"No, no we were successful I assure you," Darian replied abruptly, trying to shake off his sudden anxiety at the scrutiny; it was not a sensation he was familiar with, usually being the one making others anxious. "We made a capture the first day there; I can show you if you will follow me, as we have them locked up down below."

"I expected you to; I didn't come here to simply stand around and chat after all," Viggo returned shortly. "And did you say 'them?' You managed to acquire more than one dragon?"

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. The second I thought we could put to use for a different purpose however; I'll explain when you see her."

They descended the stairs into the cargo hold of the ship, passing by the piles of crates and trunks full of oft-pilfered wares that they had used for the trading guise and instead headed for a door at the back of the main hull, just barely noticeable if you knew where to look and hiding a closed-off back room with far more valuable items stored within.

Viggo took point and pushed the door open, unfazed by the musky aroma that rose up from the living creatures within, and turned up the flame on the simple lamp that hung from the wall. Meager light illuminated a series of cages lining the walls, most of them empty but two near the back housing a pair of heavily bound dragons (one more than the other). At this sight, Viggo finally cracked a genuine smile, walking up to the cage with the larger and more securely tied up reptile with a look of twisted delight.

"Perfect," he said smoothly, scrutinizing his quarry; the dragon was healthy, young, and most definitely the ultimate possibility that could have been obtained. "And you made sure that no one is going to be able to follow your trail? A single tracker could follow the scent for leagues as there hasn't been a storm to sweep by in several days."

"Not if their sense of smell is ruined," Darian quipped, pulling a vial out of his pocket and glancing over it.

Viggo chuckled, not taking his attention off the dragon. "I've been told you can understand me as well," he mused. "Can you talk like your parents, or are you mute like the Night Furies of old?"

"I crnnn do merch morrre thern thert if yer tek thirsss off," Tsefan growled, straining his jaws against the muzzle firmly clamped down onto his snout even as the rough edges bit between his scales into softer skin.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you would," Viggo returned with amusement. "I'm not a fool, however; these bars may hold against most dragon fire but unfortunately I have yet to test them on Night Fury plasma. We may have the opportunity in the near future though; you'll be with us for some time, after all."

"Nert if mer fermily firnds you. Yer sterpid if you thernk –MMMPH!"

The young Night Fury's voice cut off and morphed into a growl of pain as Viggo grabbed a baton off his belt and jabbed the blunt end into his side, releasing some of the tension that had built up in him over the past months as well as silencing the rant he had no interest in hearing. Unable to move thanks to the chains binding his limbs and body, Tsefan was forced to simply take it, grimacing all the while.

"I won't kill you, because I know that would be entirely counterproductive for me," Viggo snarled, "but anything and everything else is fair play, mark my words. The less you struggle, and the less your 'family' interferes with my business, the easier your confinement will be on you. I do hope I've made myself clear enough now; I can be tolerable, or I can make your life hell, little dragon."

Ignoring the seething glare Tsefan lobbed at him with practiced ease, Viggo stood up straight again and wandered to the second cage, far smaller and housing a little red Terrible Terror who glared out at him with a similar rage. "I do wonder what possessed you to bother with this one, Darian," he toned. "Compared to the Night Fury, a Terror wouldn't have any leverage at all, even if they're soft for any of the reptiles."

"Terrors are highly territorial and homebodies though," Darian explained. "No, I didn't consider holding it, but rather using it to send the message we'll need the Hooligans and their allies to receive. It'll fly right back to the island and drop it off for us, while we'll have that much more of an opportunity to leave the area instead of having to waste time sending an envoy that Berk may well just end up taking prisoner." He looked at Viggo hopefully, playing with the chance that he wasn't overstepping a boundary by suggesting such an unsolicited idea.

To his relief, Viggo nodded and rubbed his beard with impressed thoughtfulness. "A bright mind you have, very respectable," he complimented. "I may have to consider putting you up higher in the ranks; plain-faced you're smarter than some of the overseers I am trying to keep in line at the moment. What say you, brother?"

"I'd certainly prefer him to that bull-headed dullard we have watching the overland routes currently," Ryker quipped.

Viggo smirked at the response, reaching into his pocket. He flicked out a key, and for a moment Darian made to offer his own as he believed he had the only ones to the cages, before Viggo slipped his into the lock on the Terror's cage and it clicked open. The senior hunter reached deftly inside and roughly pulled the red-hued dragon out by the scruff of her neck as he unlatched the chains, yanking her free of one confinement only to keep her uncomfortably clasped in his hand.

"Prepare a tie for its leg, to attach the message," Viggo ordered, holding the struggling reptile out to Darian. "I'll have a scroll written out momentarily, detailing my requirements for those blasted scaly-lovers. Be ready immediately afterward to head into port as well."

As soon as Darian held the Terror, Viggo wasted no time exiting the room with his subordinate and brother in tow, and leaving Tsefan alone in his cage with not even Scarlet to converse with anymore. Fully on his own again, he realized with some pain, for the first time since he'd run off from his parents, the little dragon now allowed his hard gaze to finally break, tears leaking from his eyes as he slumped to the bottom of his cage and let his real emotions out. Despite his constitution, he was still not even two years old, and so his insecurities and anxiety welling up from being unwillingly separated from home now became visible in a barely-restrained panic.

Tsefan knew he could not break his restraints (even if high enough heat could ruin the metal, neither he nor any of his siblings could manipulate fire beyond their own breath weapons, and Amethyst's electrical gift was as far as they knew not heritable), and he knew as well that no one he was to encounter any time soon was going to be willing to listen to him either. This was it: he'd wanted a fight, he'd wanted to encounter the real world, but instead it had grabbed him and torn him from everything he'd known in a sick irony. If he could have taken his words back from days ago, he would have in a heartbeat now.

 _Please make it home safe, Scarlet,_ he thought to himself, whimpering forlornly. _Get everyone here soon, please. Yah, help me hold on, please bring me my family; I don't know how to get through this myself._

* * *

"Anything at all?"

"Not a trace; he's not on the island, and he didn't leave on his own volition. I found one footprint, and the area was soaked in ammonia so someone knew we'd be looking and didn't want us following them."

Hiccup and the two Night Furies next to him all deflated, and I could see panic rising in the eyes of the latter. I hadn't quite said it in as many words, but the evidence pointed in that one single direction: two days ago, while we were at the banquet, Tsefan had been kidnapped and whoever had done it had known exactly what they were doing.

The village had quickly begun worrying over the Night Fury when he didn't show up, and then when rumors started so did the pointing of fingers before Stoick had stepped in to intervene. Some had even begun blaming Johann and the other traders, despite two of said ships still being in port and Johann himself being equally vocal in his worry; he'd become rather fond of the curious young Night Fury, as for whatever reason Tsefan was one of the few who would withstand listening to the man spin tales that made most of our heads ache.

Though I and several of the other riders and dragons had been out ever since that evening searching for the young dragon, we had turned up nothing to help with the pacification of the village. Unfortunately, it now looked like our worries were well-founded too, and the precision it had been pulled off with pointed to someone who had known that Tsefan had left the village proper, knew his habits, and either had the means to track or attract a dragon that even I could take hours to sniff out or was working with someone who did.

That left us with only one option: set up a search party beyond the scope of Berk alone, which would be a huge undertaking considering the number of options there were for where Tsefan could have been taken.

"Call the gang to the Great Hall," I said lowly, turning to head into the village. "I'll get the Descendants down here too; every second is a moment more that Tsefan could be ending up deeper in trouble."

Hiccup didn't waste a moment, hopping onto Toothless' saddle and rocketing off with the dragon into the air. Amethyst, meanwhile, fell in behind me, anxious concern clouding her features.

::What are we going to tell the other four?:: she asked softly, glancing in the direction of Raven's Point; Holly had already heard my concern, living with me as she did, and so was busy keeping Lazuli and his sisters occupied during the search to keep them from worrying too much. She had not been okay with hearing that either; she'd stayed on Berk exactly for the purpose of finding Tsefan and keeping him safe and in his own right mind again while we were all away, and still whoever had done it had slipped in right past her.

A sigh escaped me at the thought. "The truth, Amethyst," I breathed. "Much as I hate exposing them to this Tsefan is already in danger, and I know kids are smarter than most give them credit for, especially Night Fury juveniles. If we string them along instead, they'll eventually find out anyway and probably try to go out looking for him on their own; better to be up front, as we don't need to be looking for five dragons instead of one. I'm going to call Holly in."

My com set materialized on my head and switched on automatically, but before I could tune it to Holly's line however, another voice called out from a side street we were passing.

"Hawken! I apologize if I'm interrupting something, but I think things have gotten worse."

It was Sigrid Hofferson, walking up the path with Eret and Spitfire trailing her. I halted and turned to give them my full attention; Sigrid never interjected with trivial matters.

"Sigrid? What happened?"

"It's Scarlet; she's been missing since the night Tsefan disappeared as well. You know how she occasionally hangs out with him, and she always helps me otherwise. She never stays gone for more than an hour or two. I think…whatever happened to Tsefan may have happened to her as well."

"And I think I might have found something to give us a lead," Eret added bitterly, undoubtedly displeased with what he was about to say. Out of his vest pocket he produced a small object that he tossed to me. "Found this laying in the back of my ship's cargo hold while I was checking the crew's supplies."

I recognized the device immediately. "This…this is one of the long-distance radios Zipeau developed!" I exclaimed. "He's been missing a set of four for over a year now! It was on your ship?"

"Yeah. Problem is I can't be certain it came from my crew," he huffed. "There was a lot of activity when both the other ships were here, both Johann and that other crew on and off all three of our ships. All of my crew is accounted for, though Tefari and Arveni have been hard to find in the village recently –I'm half-worried they're avoiding me- but since the past two days have been so full of trades and keeping balances with everything I've gotten or given to Johann and that Darian fellow, someone could more than easily have planted it."

I frowned. "You handle the radio too much on your way here?"

"Not beyond picking it up and handing it to you, why?"

"Well, we might be able to lift fingerprints from it in that case. I'll give you an ink pad to get prints from your men; that way we can at least rule whether or not your crew has handled it at all. Don't tell them why you're getting prints though."

I reached upward and rubbed my forehead with my fingers. "This is going downhill really fast," I sighed. "Eret, head to the Great Hall for the moment; we're meeting up to discuss our next course of action. Take Attonius with you if you run across him too."

Finally, as he nodded and headed away, I tuned my com into Holly's headset and spoke urgently into it. "Holly, the quartet still with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"We've figured out Tsefan's been taken off the island, no question, let them know –gently if you can."

"Tell them their brother was kidnapped? Hawken, are you crazy? They'll"-

"Yes, I know they might freak, but they need to know and I need you to bring them back to the village to meet us in the Great Hall. We're going to plan what to do next."

A heavy sigh escaped my sister. "Alright, got it. Ugh, this sounds like I might have to make some emergency compromises with the last few days of school."

"Use the honorary officer title you have; I'll vouch for you. I'll see you in a few minutes, got to call the Descendants in."

Her com clicked off, and I switched on the other lines. "Feren, Delta, Jake, everyone: meet at the Great Hall, pronto. Tsefan's been kidnapped, and we're making plans. There will likely be several search parties involved."

A chorus of affirmations followed, and I dematerialized my headset again. "Everyone's heading in, looks like it's our turn too," I informed those still standing with me. "Sigrid, we will keep an eye out for Scarlet as well while we're"-

::S-Sigrid! Hawken!::

The three of us there all whirled around at the sound of the exhausted squeak, and the little red Terror that we had just been talking about suddenly tumbled out of the sky and into Sigrid's arms.

"Oh my Lord, Scarlet, what happened to you?" the healer fretted, bundling up the little reptile and cradling her close. "You're completely burnt out!"

Indeed, the dragon barely had the strength to turn her heard now to look at me, disturbed eyes flickering with fear and sorrow as she lifted her back leg slightly. Tied to it was a short, crinkled scroll of paper.

::H-he's back, Hawken,:: she whispered. ::Tsefan…they…hostage…::

Nothing further escaped her as she finally passed out from her exhaustion. Gingerly, I reached forward and took the paper off her leg, before looking up at the one holding her. "Sigrid, take her and get her rested up," I said softly but firmly, unrolling the tiny scroll. "We'll let you know what…"

I trailed off as I began to read the message, choppily as the New Norse alphabet still didn't quite register with me naturally, but the only thing I really needed to see was the scrawled name at the bottom of the page.

Amethyst clearly saw my eyes darken (both figuratively and literally I'm sure) from where she was searching my gaze, as she tilted her head cautiously to peer at me. "What does it say?" she ventured cautiously.

I looked up at her, and my scowl deepened, seeing in front of me only a reminder of the words on the parchment. "Great Hall. Now," I snapped, whirling immediately around and marching up toward the massive doors.

Amethyst glanced back at Sigrid for a moment, who nodded as well as she began to head to her own house with Scarlet in her arms, before the female Night Fury bounded after me.

"Hawken, wait!" she called. "What's on the letter?"

I held up the paper over my shoulder, not bothering to look back as I folded it out so she could read the signature, and a moment later I felt the electric charge in the air as she made it out.

"It says," I growled, "that one Viggo Grimborn, a dragon hunter, has my nephew, your son."

* * *

 _To those whom it may concern,_

 _I am sure by now that it is clear to you that your coveted young Night Fury is no longer on Berk, and won't be returning any time soon either. Take heart though in knowing that, no, I do not have any intention of killing the dragon; he is far too valuable to me for that. However, I have grown ever more displeased with the hindrances your village and allies have placed on my trade, and must take action to remedy this. A business must expand to survive, after all, and I will take the means I deem necessary to ensure it does._

 _If you continue to harass the ships and men under my command or detriment the trade in similar manner, I will take action against your beloved dragon. Reptiles, I have found, can endure a great deal of pain and injury and still stave off death with ease, and they recover quite quickly. This is my bargain that I hand to you now: the less you interfere with me, the better off the Night Fury will be, and the more amicably we can all interact for now. If you attempt to come looking for him, I know I cannot prevent you from doing so of course, but you will not find success. It is a vast planet after all, and a thousand places I can hide upon it and I am the only one who knows them all; the dragon may be at any of them, or even hiding in plain sight, and you can search forever while I move forever. Desist, and he will be kept safely with us._

 _Choose wisely what you value, in what you call family and duty._

 _~Viggo Grimborn, Master of the Hunter's Coalition_

As I lowered my hands, the words I'd read still echoing off the walls at the furious volume I'd held, the gathered audience around me began erupting.

"What's the worst he could do if he won't kill Tsefan?" Snotlout shouted incredulously. "Come on, if we follow him and storm the place they're holding him, we can break a dragon out no problem and kick Viggo's butt while we're at it!"

"Are you dull?!" Amethyst snapped back, wings flaring as she glared at him. "Wait, I already know the answer. We don't know where they took him, Viggo isn't stupid enough to parade my son around with him, and they know how to mask scent trails never mind how to fight dragons, even with our advantages! There's no way to just storm the place if we don't have the first freaking clue where that place is or how it's set up!"

"Yeah, and you don't risk a child's safety on a maybe!" Ruff agreed, looking at the Night Fury empathetically. "If he thinks he's going to lose Tsefan he might just kill him then; mother to mother, we're not okay with doing something that could hurt Tsefan –ow! Debbie, watch the braids!"

The little girl giggled as she grabbed her mother's hair again, completely oblivious to the tension around her. The scene at least managed to bring a smile to some of our faces for a moment, before the dark mood set in again.

"Alright," Hiccup began, "there's no way Viggo can keep his business completely hidden, so someone, somewhere along the trade routes, has likely seen him recently, or at least captive dragons that Viggo has traded and sold around. If we send out search parties, we need them to spread wherever he might have hideouts or trade centers and fan from there."

"But we know he's got a huge reach," Fishlegs countered. "Viggo is the head of an entire organization after all, and he trades from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. I mean, if we split up, a group could go with Hawken and be able to get to the Far East in a timely manner in case Viggo has decided to take Tsefan as far away as possible, but the rest of us would be rather slow going from here outward. It would take a week just to reach Italy if we never stopped anywhere along the way."

"One party should focus on the North Sea region," Embron toned, pointing his tail at a map we had splayed out on the table in front of us. "I think that should be the group with Hiccup, with your familiarity with the region and possible needs for diplomacy or dealings with local dragons, since there are more here than most of the world."

"Sure, pull the future chief card," Hiccup quipped.

Embron huffed, and shook his head. "No, not just that," he countered. "You're the dragon whisperer and the north has the greatest density of species; that kind of expertise may be necessary when in travel and especially anywhere that Viggo's encountered. Fishlegs would be good with you as well with his knowledge, if he goes. If we can perhaps contact the Asgard family to assist in travel at least then they could go with Attonius and Eret southward, as you two have the greatest familiarity with the trades of Africa and the Mediterranean." He looked to the Sami and minister, who both purse their lips pensively. The statement was a truth, but it could also be said that they didn't exactly have many true friends there either.

"Perhaps I can lead a party to the coasts," Valka suggested, sweeping her arm toward the edges of Norway. "I know the region as well, and with dragons at their densest here Viggo's trade would fare best being based somewhere nearby."

Immediately both Hiccup and Amethyst shook their heads. "No Mom," the former said, "we need you and Dad still holding down the fort here and keeping patrols going; I don't put it past Viggo's men to try and make off with someone else, and we know that someone either in the village or amongst the recent traders was working with the kidnappers. You're good at seeing out-of-place details, Cloudjumper is a figurehead for the dragons alongside Thornado while we're gone, and we need you to keep an eye on Tamaria and company while we're gone. We cannot let them try and wander off to search for their brother as well and risk getting lost or taken too."

A chorus of complaints came from the mentioned young Night Furies resting by their father, and Toothless turned to shush them. I nodded, turning to open my mouth again to affirm the notion and note the next plan, when the Hall doors swung open and interrupted me with a somewhat pleasant surprise.

"I was beginning to worry that everyone had run out on some new grand adventure," Loki chuckled, walking in with Fenrir padding at his side. "But, uh, I am getting the sense that you're not all gathered in here for pleasant news. Forgive us, did we interrupt something?"

"Loki, Fenrir! Nice to see you guys dropping by for a visit again," Hiccup greeted cordially, walking over to the two Asgardians and extending a hand for the human part of the pair to take. "I'm afraid you did come by at both a good and bad time though. Bad, because Tsefan has been kidnapped"-

"What?!" both visitors snapped, Fenrir's hackles rising. Loki looked even more incensed than his brother, and for good reason; he'd always been close to the Night Furies, even more so when the new generation had hatched, and his eyes flickered over to the remaining youngsters. "Who's the one responsible, do you know?" he hissed, his hand instinctively hovering over one of the multitude of weapons hidden at his sides.

"A dragon hunter by the name of Viggo Grimborn," Eret spoke up, arms crossed. "I used to work for him, and you and your family may or may not have run across his name in your travels recently. We are at an impasse currently, because if we try and interfere with his trade he will harm Tsefan, and there are a thousand places that Viggo could make a young dragon disappear to."

"Which brings us to what could be better news," Attonius continued from across the table. "We seem to have decided that we are going to send out search parties, but Viggo's reach is wide and we need at least two forays traveling very long distances to make sure we're covering all we need to. We were in fact toying with the notion of calling your family to see if"-

"I'll help in any way I can," Loki cut off, eyes hardening. "I will let Fenrir speak for himself, but you have my assistance wherever we will travel."

"Perfect." Now it was Camicazi's turn to speak up. "Hawken's group is probably traveling to Asia; we need to head to the south, Rome and possibly Alexandria and such."

"And Fenrir, if you are willing, my party could probably use a translator," I said, garnering the wolf's attention. "I know Attonius is fluent in some of the southern linguistics, and if Fishlegs goes to travel he ought to be with Hiccup so they're not too far from Berk and his daughter" (I caught Fish's grateful look at this notion), "so that leaves me at a disadvantage."

Fenrir looked around the room at the earnest faces, before he nodded. "I think it's not left to question that you are all as family to us as well," he said. "Family does not let each other to their own devices. I am familiar with some of the cultures to the East as well." He smiled, and for the first time, I actually started feeling hopeful.

"Okay, now that that's settled, who else is going with who?" Jake asked, looking around over everyone's heads. "We're gonna need dragons with each party to carry those of us who can't fly, and probably best to split the raptors between everyone so we all have their support."

"I'm with Hiccup," Astrid stated firmly, as if we would question that. "Ember should go with Hawken. Kingsley ought to go with Attonius and Eret, Sasha with Hawken and maybe Feren with Eret as well."

"I'll go with you," Jake decided, looking to Hiccup, "make sure that if we come across Viggo that we've got all the firepower we need."

"Yeah, so we can get everyone actually assigned in a little bit," I deferred. "Hiccup and I can take care of that. Ugh, too bad we can't grab like a police detective or something from back home to go along with, their skills would be useful. Someone who will notice clues that I know the rest of us will likely gloss over."

"Why can't we?" Tuffnut asked, before Cami flicked him in the ear.

"Worlds apart and the laws don't apply the same here as they do in the US," I deadpanned. "Not to mention authorities back home would never authorize it. We're on our own with that."

"And most of the organizations for such in this world are nowhere near as developed," Attonius mused. "I couldn't imagine the Roman guard being willing at all here. They might just side with Viggo instead."

His point was valid; just like our world, half of this one was run by money more than morals, and it was unlikely anyone would hire out sleuths toward a cause that aimed to bring down a massive trade.

"Don't write off the possibility of such assistance just yet," a new, and shockingly familiar voice sounded from the opening Hall doors. "Help can come from the most distant of places, my friend."

We all paused at the sudden second unexpected entrance, before every gaze turned to meet the golden-brown eyes set in a maned visage only a handful of us present recognized in person.

"Aslan!" Loki spoke first, rushing forward and giving the huge lion a hug that under other circumstances would have been hilariously awkward to see; his arms barely fit around the big cat. "Brother, it has been so long! That you are still around is incredible; how have you been?"

"Better than not my friend," Aslan chuckled. "When news arrived that you and your family had escaped I knew I'd found the right bearer." His eyes wandered to Hiccup, who blushed at the attention and awkwardly scratched his head.

Fenrir chuckled at the sight, having followed Aslan's gaze, before he turned back to the lion again as well. "So, O lion of cryptic riddles, have you traveled here for a surprise visit as well or were you alerted to the trouble we have stumbled in on, and are here to help?"

"Not truly either, Fenrir," Aslan answered bluntly. Immediately those words brought all of us to feel cheated, that he was here but not to help (even those who had never met the guardian had heard from Hiccup and company about the lion whose gifts no one could actually pin down and name, an odd advantage in an ally), but his smile seemed to grow only warmer in response.

"I am still obligated to protect the western ocean and Narnia, so I will soon be returning there," he reminded. "But, a movement of the Spirit has instead led me to bring along a couple of friends whom I believe will be of great help to you, and perhaps you them as well. I think there may be some personal benefits to both sides as well in your working together." He turned to look back at the door, and called out, "You may come in now."

"Well, it can't be Caspian or the Pevensies, so who…" I began muttering, before my words were silenced along with the rest of the musings in the room when the doors swung open once more.

"So, this is what a Viking village looks like, huh? I'll be honest, it's a lot nicer than I was expecting; lots of color even without the painted reptiles everywhere."

He stood four, maybe four and a half feet tall, carrying a small canvas case at his side and decked out in a shirt that neared a truly gaudy green color that contrasted with the plain tan-gray pants below it. Cream fur ran down his front, the rest of him a vibrant red-orange darkening to blackened sienna on his paws, ears, and tail, and a defining smirk made his burning emerald eyes seem to express the notion that he knew about everything that was going on.

I glanced over at Holly, and her slack-jawed expression told me that she, too, had recognized him. Almost timidly, I ventured a question now that I had a notion of who Aslan had just brought along.

"Nick?"

His ears perked and he turned toward me, smile changing to one of true amusement as he held up his arm in a mock salute. "Well, good guess; at your service! Maybe also perhaps at a request for something to drink if it's possible, been a bit of a trip here."

"Nick."

The smile faltered slightly. "Yes, that's my name."

"Nick Wilde."

"Alight, so Aslan didn't say he came by already to introduce us; I thought that's what this was supposed to be for"-

" _Nicholas Piberius_ Wilde."

Now the slightly irritated but knowing look was entirely gone, replaced by a perplexed stare at me. "Okay," he began, "there are all of maybe five people who know my middle name, and none of them live outside of Narnia, so who…"

His confused questioning died off when I leaned back against the wall of the Hall's fire pit and burst out laughing as hard as I could, tears leaking out of my eyes. Soon, the giggles turned contagious, catching Holly, Hiccup, Astrid, and several of the others in the room as they caught on to why the situation was striking me as so amusing. In turn, it was making the fox's eyes stretch wider and wider as he watched us descend into mad giggling fits.

"What the heck did I miss here?" he quipped, looking questioningly between us and Aslan. "You said we were helping them, but I didn't think it was helping cure insanity."

"You already exist!' I finally gasped, still crying with laughter and making Nick even more confused. "That's why it didn't work, you're already here! Ha ha ha! Is Judy around too?"

"I knew it, no one actually notices the rabbit the first time around," she groused, stepping out from behind Nick and Aslan, blue-dyed shirt and brown pants wrinkling as she set her own case down and crossed her arms, violet eyes narrowing in perplexed irritation. She stood only about a head shorter than Nick, but it didn't detract much from her serious stance. "You know my full name too, somehow? Aslan, you tell them? How did you know if so, because I need to know."

"Nope!" I chimed jovially, starting to regain my senses again. "No, _Judith Laverne Hopps,_ no, we just know of a mirror image of you two from what I had thought was just a story where I come from. I should really stop assuming this already, especially when the Descendant attempt failed."

"Yeah, like that was likely," Holly said, still snorting as she also started getting her giggles under control. "It didn't work but you still obsessed over that movie for months! Heh, we should show them the plushies you tried bringing to life!"

"Hey, no, none of that!"

"Why, you embarrassed them by spouting their full names for all to hear already! Only fair."

"Anyway, so," Hiccup toned, shutting both of us up but still holding an ecstatic grin like the rest of us, "Nick, Judy, I take it this means you two are our new help?"

"Yep," Judy replied cheerfully, pep returning even though she clearly hadn't quite grasped what I'd been rambling about. "Aslan said you guys might be needing assistance with a case here, and we're out here hopefully to answer a problem of our own at the same time."

"If you have any experience with kidnappings then you're more than welcome," Amethyst mused, drawing looks of slight surprise from the new pair (they lived with talking animals, so a talking dragon wasn't going to shock them as much as most of those we'd run across, but still).

Nick's eyebrow rose slightly. "Yeah, in fact we do sort of," he said.

"Good," Amethyst replied, perking up slightly, "because a hunter stole my son as a ransom against us and we're currently talking in circles trying to figure out how to get him back."

Fox and rabbit ears dropped. "Oh," Judy said softly, before her gaze grew determined. "Well, count on us then if we can help. Nobody's staying missing if I have anything to say about it."

Her spunk brought a chuckle out of Camicazi, she and Stormfly moving forward a bit so they stood more in line with Hiccup and I as they looked over the new arrivals. "Well," she said, "they've definitely got the same drive as the movie versions did; you're just so _cute_ too!"

Several breaths were sucked in around the room, and I swore the air dropped in temperature; Cami's tone was purposeful, so she knew what she'd said too which made it worse.

"Oh my God," Holly whispered, "Cami, you can't just call a rabbit cute, don't you remember that?"

Indeed, Judy's gaze locked on that of the yellow-haired warrioress, and I could see the displeasure building; she'd heard Holly's whisper, and so knew it was purposeful. Looks like the stigma was as true here as it was in film.

She didn't get the chance to respond though before Nick took the opportunity, the fox giving a huff as his smirk deepened. "Ha!" he exclaimed. "Gee, that's rich, coming from the Viking version of a blonde-haired gerbil, shorty."

If the room was cold before, it was below freezing now. Even Stormfly was turning pale cream as Cami's expression turned wide-mouthed and hard-eyed. Hiccup and I cringed; no one commented on Camicazi's height and managed to escape unscathed, not even me. Nick caught our looks, but on the surface remained entirely unperturbed.

Then, Cami's expression relaxed just as quickly as it had tensed, and her own smarmy grin reappeared as she let out a boisterous laugh. "Well, talk about quick wits and guts!" she guffawed. "Alright, I definitely like this one." Ignoring our once again flabbergasted expressions, she strode forward like she'd known him all her life and landed a soft, joking punch to Nick's shoulder. "Yeah, you'll fit in perfectly here. Name's Camicazi; nice to meet both of you!"

As they shook hands, I shared a befuddled glance with Hiccup before attempting to shake off the odd feeling (how the heck had Nick of all characters managed to escape the wrath of Cami?) and putting on a grin, walking forward to greet our new guests as well. "And my name's Hawken," I introduced, extending both my hands to the pair. "On behalf of everyone here whom we'll get through introductions for eventually, welcome to the team!" As Cami stepped back finally, the duo took my offered palms in greeting as well.

A moment later, the bright flash that erupted as we made contact made all three of us jump back in shock. A ripple of energy ran up their arms for a mere second before fading away, save for a slight glow coalescing on each of their right arms. Seconds later, it died off as well, leaving behind a silvery pattern in Nick's fur, black on Judy, in the shape of a menorah not unlike the mark upon my own arm but entwined in interlacing, joined lines.

Fox and rabbit both stared at the sudden emblems with wide-eyed suspicion, before looking back at me, and the slowly spreading smile that was splitting my face.

"Okay…what…" Judy began to stutter, before her attention was abruptly drawn off by Aslan (also sporting a knowing smile, as was often customary for him) turning toward the doors.

"It would appear that things are now in motion here, so I must be returning to my own position once more," he said. "Pass on my greetings to your family, Loki and Fenrir, and to the rest of you: Yah be with you in your travels." Then he pushed the doors open and slipped out, disappearing without another sound.

At this point the rabbit in our midst collected her senses and decided that she suddenly had reservations about being left with a bunch of awkward strangers, one of whom had apparently just branded her. "Aslan, wait!" she yelled out, bolting for the doors as well and in a somewhat comical manner dragged one of them open. "You never said anything about stuff like this! I did not voice agreement with tattoos and –aaannnd he's gone," she sighed, dejectedly sticking her head out and looking hopelessly around outside before letting the door slip closed again. "Figures, when you need an answer the lion in the room can just vanish into thin air."

"That is something he's known for," Loki chuckled, before sweeping his hand around toward the rest of us. "Worry not Judy, you are amongst good company here, and your being marked does not change our goals; it should be looked on as a blessing you know."

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to side with Officer Fluff on not having voluntarily stepped up for getting a fur brand," Nick drawled, holding up his now silver-touched arm and looking at me. "So, think you can reverse your unexpected gift here Hawk?"

I let slip an involuntary giggle before apologetically covering my mouth and shaking my head. "I'm afraid not," I said. "That would first require me having actually been the one to give it to you. It wasn't me, but, uh, I do seem to tend to be the catalyst."

"Oh? Then who did? We weren't shaking hands with anyone else at that moment."

"As simply put as I can, God. They're, uh, symbols of gifts, or power if you want to call it that, possibly as a member of the Riders like the rest of us." I rolled up my sleeve and held out my own arm, revealing the spiral-bound menorah (and noting again the similarity mine had to their marks; I had to figure out the meaning soon or it would drive me nuts I knew) before Hiccup, Astrid, and the others did the same. "So, uh, looks like you guys might really be welcome to the team in a more physical sense here. We'll figure out what your symbols mean eventually, and please don't worry over it; it won't change anything for why you're here."

"And here I thought we were just looking for answers to our smuggling problem and lending a hand to allies," Judy sighed, receiving a shrug from her partner in response.

"I've spent enough time with you to know life's never that simple, Carrots," he drawled pointedly, before slipping on a resigned grin. "But, since we're here now, and our ride over here has kind of vanished, I guess we might as well see where this is going. Gee, I don't even really remember how he brought us here either." He looked at me again, and a sliver of hopefulness appeared. "Sure you can't get rid of this?"

"You'd have to take it up with the one really in charge," I shrugged.

He snorted, before looking at the mark again. "Oh well, maybe I can get used to it. Does look kind of cool. Hey Carrots, we match!"

"Okay, look, we are going to have to take some time to prepare before we even think of actually heading out anywhere, especially since we still have to figure out who's going with who, particularly you two now," Hiccup spoke up. "Hawken, Holly, probably a good idea if you take some of that time to help bring these two up to speed if they're tagging along now; who we are, your world perhaps, maybe get them set up with some gear and such so we don't have to constantly cover their backs, that sort of thing. Sound good?"

"Those armor sets Zipeau made!" Holly suddenly exclaimed, eyes brightening as she gained the attention of said dinosaur whose own pupils lit up in response, and he laughed.

"Of course!" he chuckled, holding up a finger. "Guess it was a premonition; those suits were undoubtedly made for these two! It makes sense now, the odd shapes, small size…"

"Perfect!" I agreed, before lending a hand again to Nick and Judy (and smirking at the newfound hesitation from their end at the gesture). "Now they'll just need a good set of defensive gear. Yeah, we'll take care of that stuff on our end Hiccup, and I'll be back later to smooth details on group assignments. Okay, come on you two, no time to waste!"

* * *

"Well I knew it was going to be an interesting day, but this…this was well beyond anything I would have predicted."

"Yeah, and we haven't even started on that search yet. A little miffed at the things we weren't made aware of before, but I'll bet it'll still be a good experience for us, don't you think?"

"Never said it wouldn't be, Carrots. I get the feeling we're gonna be kept busy for a while though, if what Dragon Boy said about the hunters is true. Oh hey, you manage to get a glimpse of that 'plush doll' of you that he had? He was trying to hide them away earlier, but I managed to get a glimpse of them before he did. It's adorable."

Nick and Judy had both been outfitted with the suits that had apparently been inadvertently produced for them ("Like stylish version of our old uniforms," the fox had described them), and then the gold and green dinosaur –another concept the two were warming up to, a second variety of large (and talking) reptiles that lived now on Berk- had set about figuring up how to fit weapons of the right size to give to the two. Both vulpine and lapine had thought along the lines of miniature crossbows or blades considering what they were familiar with, but while the latter were certainly part of the arsenal it turned out that there was a far broader range of weapons in this other world that they could be trained to use, and a lot of them seemed to appeal to the duo more.

Then, Hawken and his sister had taken them both to the Carlton household, and the minds of the Narnians were truly floored at what greeted them.

Electricity was slowly becoming a more familiar concept in the rapidly modernizing Narnian nation, but the sheer variety of instruments it operated in the true modern world left Judy speechless, and Nick mildly incoherent. It had taken hours to get them to even begin grasping the jargon that Hawken, Holly, and even the Berkians now used with regularity to describe Hawken's home and the objects that came from within, and another fair chunk of afternoon introducing them to the movie that definitely was eerily reminiscent of the Narnian pair's lives just a couple of years before to try and explain the gang's amusing (if disconcerting) reaction from earlier.

Now, they both lay on the top bunk in Hawken's bedroom (vacated by the Descendants' rearranging to give space for the time being, despite Judy's protest that they could have just taken the couch or a mat; Nick voiced no disagreement with an actual bed however), discussing things just to try and get their heads around the sudden worldview change to reality that they were experiencing.

"No, I didn't see them yet," Judy whispered back, grinning. "I was too busy getting flummoxed by everything else about this place. Come on, they made a moving picture that was literally a this-world version of our lives! And those things they call cars; did you see how fast they move? It's like a dragon on the land; can you imagine how easy it would be to travel around if we had those in Narnia?"

"You sure the laws and regulations would be worth it though?" Nick queried. "You heard his rant about pollutants and accidents; we'd have to fix that issue first. Hey, are you picking up some of this stuff as fast as I am? I feel almost like I could run a computer myself already if they let me."

"Uh, maybe not quite as fast as you then but yeah, I get what you mean," Judy agreed. "Huh, I wonder if that's part of what they meant when they talked about these marks; we either have or just got a gift apparently, so maybe this means we're good at adapting somehow?"

"Eh, not sure that's what I would get from looking at the design here," Nick mused, glancing at his arm again, "but we did kind of 'tie in' with everyone here pretty quickly. It's odd, I do kind of feel like I fit in here. Think we should arrange extended visits when all this is over?"

Judy chuckled and nestled into the pillow at her back more; the comfort amazed her. "Maybe," she hummed, "though I think we should worry about getting comfortable with the motley crew we've just met first. But if there is a next time perhaps we get some decently separated sleeping quarters. It's a bit cramped up here at the moment."

As the words left her mouth, she suddenly felt herself blush under her fur and she scooted just slightly further from Nick, trying to disguise it as her getting more comfortable. "I, uh…not that I don't like your company or anything, but our arrangement back in Narnia was nice enough, you know?"

"Maybe I know, maybe not," Nick replied, trying to hide his own embarrassed tone by playing on hers, his classic smug grin appearing. "But somehow, I don't think you mind sharing one big, fluffy mattress with me. Weren't you the one obsessing with how my tail is 'just perfect as a comforter' not too long ago?"

The indignant squeak from the rabbit only made him laugh.

"Hey, WildeHopps! You know it's 11:30 at night and every one of us can hear every word you say up there?" Kingsley's irritated voice rose up from below, silencing both mammals on the top bunk as their blushes returned almost visibly (if it hadn't been dark) at his use of the pairing name. Both Holly and Hawken had made sure they were familiar with the fandom term, but neither were sure if it was to warn them of the world's perspective of them, or just to prove that they already had fodder to get back at the fox for his inevitable snark (probably both, but mostly the latter Nick was certain).

"Just tune them out Kingsley," Hawken's tired voice replied. "It's just another day for us, but it's been a paradigm shift for them after all. Let the lovebirds talk."

"Hawken?!" Judy groused indignantly, earning only a laugh from below. She sighed in resignation, knowing it wasn't going away either, and suddenly she felt like she was surrounded by Nick-ish personalities. While she loved (even if she swore she'd never admit it out loud) the one she was used to, a dozen sarcastic jokesters was sure to make for a very interesting experience coming up.

Maybe that was the reason they were fitting in so well: everyone here survived on snark, but still had each other's backs when it came down to it. One thing was certain though; if they were going to find answers, they would need to watch out for each other every step of the way, old friends or not.

* * *

 **A/N-So I've decided: writing introductory scenes sucks, and I'm still terrible at them. But hey, it's out of the way, and more fun things can be looked forward to now. Anyway, what did you think? As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, predictions, critiques, and questions in your reviews! And, if all goes well it might only be a 2 week break before the next chapter, but we'll see...life is still being an arse here after all :P**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	7. Chapter 6: Of Bitter Berserkers

Chapter 6

Of Bitter Berserkers and Other Annoying Ideas

/

 _It can be hilarious what your mind cooks up_

 _When you're stressed and wanting ways out_

 _You turn to things you normally wouldn't dream_

 _Of even entertaining, let alone relying on with less than full doubt_

 _Funny how life works though_

 _The options you hate are often the best you can get_

 _Those paths you hate to look at_

 _Are the trails you ought to blaze_

 _And the one you thought an enemy?_

 _Misunderstood perhaps, but an asset and not a regret_

 _-0-_

"I've got an idea before we actually head out," Camicazi said as we walked toward the Great Hall. It was the second morning after the two Narnians had joined us (the day before had been spent preparing everything we needed to get squared away, including Holly somehow wrestling her way out of the last week and a half or so of school and Nick and Judy picking up on lingo so fast it made our heads spin), and everyone who was set to travel (and a few individuals who were staying on the island but helping see us off) was gathering presently to get going.

Apparently though, some second thoughts may have been coming up concerning whether we'd really covered all the bases we needed to before taking off.

"I highly doubt we've got any clues left on the island, Cami," Feren retorted. "Unless Zipeau completes the fingerprint analysis sooner than expected, there's not much for us here, and he and Stoick can take care of that when they find answers. And, seeing as how he hasn't even had the chance to read up decently on the procedure yet, let alone actually run the analysis…"

"No, no, we looked over another possibility," Cami countered, waving a hand at the big cat dismissively. "Viggo said he was a business guy when he came here those years ago, didn't care who he dealt with so long as it turned him a decent profit in the process without too many setbacks. That means he probably would have been more than open to even dealing with nutcases, provided said nutcase had a use for weapons and dragon hunting materials in return."

"You got a surplus of loose bolts to chat with on the island or something?" Nick queried, looking over at Cami with a smirk. "I mean besides the twins, I would have thought you would have weeded out anyone around who would actually be willing to talk business with this hunter you've got the beef with."

"We did," she replied smugly. "There just happens to be one possibly very loose cannon in the prison cells right now though who may know a thing or two about the guy we're after. I think it might be worth it to try and get him to talk, or if that fails at least antagonize him a little to relieve stress before we go."

I groaned. "Him, Cami? Really? He's been down there for two years; whatever game he knew about Viggo's almost certainly changed by now."

"Perhaps, but despite his claims to want reform he still might at least know how an eel like Viggo manages to slip around."

"I think it might be worth at least a look in on," Judy agreed, glancing at her partner who nodded in affirmation as well. "No matter how much someone changes their tactics, everyone's got a personality type and therefore a pattern of some sort they'll stick to. Besides, Nick and I need some more experience with the kinds of criminals you guys have to deal with."

Feren chuckled nearby and reached over to nudge me with a paw. "Looks like you've been outvoted Hawken," he said in amusement, and I sighed.

"Alright, alright," I conceded, "let's go ask Hiccup what he thinks about this delay then. I'm giving him and the Night Furies final say on the matter."

Turns out fox, rabbit, and short blonde Viking made for a convincing group, and five minutes later found several of us heading down to the Berk prison cells. Built out of one of the several caverns that snaked through the hills and depths of the island's coasts, the prison had slowly been modified over the years so that, while they were intentionally left unpleasant so as to be proper punishment for those within, they were not what one could consider inhumane or even particularly cruel in design anymore (and in fact, some of the better cells could almost be called classy; not the ones with anyone in them currently though).

Each room was carved from the rock itself, barred at the entrance to the main corridor by new Mysteel gates, and decorated with simple facilities: bed, semi-private latrine (one thing everyone agreed even law-breakers still needed), and a small wooden desk. Other amenities were given at the discretion of the guards and the chief. The cell we headed for in particular was deep within the cavern guarded currently by Avindsen and illuminated by a small set of Nightmare torches placed strategically along the corridor so that no one spot had any decent shadow upon it.

As we marched down the main tunnel, I happened to glance down to my side at Nick, and spotted the fox tipping a foam cup full of coffee up to his muzzle.

"Where the heck did you pick that up?"

He looked at me with a confused expression, before following my gaze and putting it together, twisting his snout into an amused grin. "Wow, no wonder you guys need help, if you've missed seeing something like this," he teased. "I've had it since we left your house Hawken. And before you ask, yes we Narnians are familiar coffee and similar drinks."

"And a certain vulpine is nearly addicted to it," Judy quipped. "If there's one thing this trip should be good for, it's breaking him of that habit."

Nick scoffed. "Hey, you try and be a crepuscular mammal adapting to a daytime schedule without a pick-me-up, fluff." He shot her a pointed look while sipping dramatically out of the cup again.

"You walked into that one, Hawken," my sister teased. "Gee, even I saw him making it this morning. Kind of surprised he knows how to work the Keurig already though."

I sighed. "Yeah, alright, that one's on me, now drop it. It's been a long morning already so let's just get this over with."

We approached the front of our target "cage," and Hiccup stepped up to the door, rapping on the bars. The occupant stirred, before a disturbingly enthusiastic smile split his face and he leapt up to his feet.

"Ah, Hiccup, brother! It's been so long since you last visited, and you brought friends!" He trotted up to the gate, and looked out with a gasp. "Oh, how adorable! You never said you had other fuzzy animals working with you guys!"

"Cool it Dagur, we're not here for fun and games," Hiccup toned warningly. "And by now you should know that acting like we're friends isn't going to get you anywhere, especially not after what you did. You're lucky we don't stick you down in one of the darker cells near Alvin."

The former Berserker held his smile for a few seconds more, his eye twitching erratically, before it dropped into a disappointed, accepting scowl. "You're right," he said quietly. "Anger-fueled fool with a power-hungry streak and a grudge match against the Viking I saw as having everything I wanted for myself, and I blew it. I don't deserve your forgiveness, so I'm just trying to change for myself, and for Heather."

Thanks to the events we had viewed in the several recent RTTE seasons DreamWorks had released, our discovery of the very real blood relationship Dagur had with our fellow Rider Heather had come at once as a shock and no surprise at all. Heather had kept her being orphaned when young and then adopted by her current tribe well on the down-low for some time, but eventually the pieces fell into the light.

When Dagur had been informed of this news, the changes to him had been near-instantaneous, if weak, though growing stronger ever since. We were still to be convinced that the feelings were genuine, but if they were apparently what the maniac needed was a family motive other than what his father alone had once been. Most of us were taking his actions with a grain of salt still though.

"Somehow I really doubt Heather will believe you," Holly drawled, pulling out a throwing knife from her belt and twirling it lazily between her fingers. "She still seems to hold that attack of yours on her adoptive tribe years ago rather personally. Would you have done something like that if you had known she was your sister?"

"I don't think anything would have changed if I hadn't been tossed in prison here, Holly," Dagur quipped, clearly trying to keep from exploding at the jab like he once would have readily. "I don't hold that against any of you either, and might even thank you for it now that I look back. But, it's not helping me at all to keep reminding me of what I once did, alright?"

"Hey, tone it down a bit, gingerbread," Nick suddenly piped up, drawing Dagur's skeptic gaze. "Alright look, we can drop the past because it's not what we're here for right now." He gave the rest of us a pointed look before Judy continued in his stead.

"You said that you're wanting to make things up with this Heather person," she began, "so maybe you can start here, by telling us what we need to know right now from you."

Dagur didn't move for a moment (undoubtedly at least in part because he was still processing having a conversation with a bunny), before he let out a sigh and nodded, stepping back to lean against his bed and crossing his arms. "Well, I can't do much else while I'm stuck in here, can I rabbit?" he asked rhetorically. "What is it that you think I might know about?"

Hiccup stepped forward and produced a key (given to him with permission by Stoick), unlocking the gate to Dagur's cell. Opening the door, he gestured outward to a wide-eyed Berserker. "We're going to go down to the interrogation room, where we can _all_ sit down and talk," he explained, curt but not harsh in his tone. "But, any funny business, and you will be knocked out, tied up, and thrown back in here without a second thought. Cooperate, and maybe we'll upgrade your quarters."

Dagur didn't speak, only slowly standing upright again and stepping out of his cell to be flanked by Holly and I as we walked a little ways deeper into the corridor. Another door was opened to reveal a room lined with chairs around a single small desk, equipped with cuff holds for those we deemed it necessary. Along one wall was a wooden board to hold notes or pin writing canvases on, and it was lit by brightly burning lamps, but otherwise the space was fairly bare. I gestured to the solitary chair on the opposite side of the desk for Dagur to take a seat at, and then the rest of us (Holly and I, Nick, Judy, Hiccup, Cami, Feren, and Toothless) filed in around the rest of the room, door closing at a flick of Toothless' tail behind us.

"Okay, so to the point: one of Toothless' sons was kidnapped a couple of days ago," Hiccup began, leaning down with his hands on the table as he stared at Dagur. "We got a letter from one Viggo Grimborn only just more recently saying it was him that ultimately took Tsefan and that we have to leave him completely alone if Tsefan is to be left unharmed. Have you by chance had any contact with him or men that could be working with him that you could have passed clues to?"

A tense moment reigned after, before Dagur leaned back and let out his infamous nutball laugh. "Hah! I see, you're looking for someone to pin the blame on," he guffawed. "If that's what this is, no, I'm not going to play along Hiccup! Game's no fun, the only people I've had the _privilege_ of seeing besides you are that incredibly mentally slow guy Bucket, Phlegma, and that cook you send down with your sorry excuse for food that you give your captives. What's her name, Thora?"

He leaned forward, burning sneer displayed for all to see. "Sure, when I was still a chief I'd heard of Viggo, but you won't get anything from me if I don't get a chance to leave here and am simply belittled in the meantime!"

THUNK!

Dagur's eyes widened as a handful of his hairs fell down in front of his eyes, and turned to see the knife buried in the board on the wall behind him before he swiveled to where everyone else was looking. Holly was glancing away nonchalantly, as if she hadn't been listening at all, but her hand was still up and poised from having thrown the weapon with practiced ease. She turned, smiling offhandedly at Nick's open-mouthed stare before leaning next to Hiccup against the desk.

"We weren't belittling you, Dagur, though it's possible that we have every excuse still to do so," she drawled. "We haven't yet figured out who tipped Viggo or his men off to Tsefan's habits or at least who to target, so we're trying to eliminate possibilities. Your current attitude is _not_ helping us like you any more or trust your answers. Sure, you're stuck in a cell, but I doubt it's impossible to communicate from down here."

"Okay, hold up here," Nick cut in, holding up his paws between the two sides. "Things are not heading in a helpful direction at all if you keep bickering. As entertaining as it might be to see how you guys fight or how good Holly is at giving impromptu haircuts, I don't want to get caught in the middle of it, weapons present or not. If I may?" He gestured to shoo Holly and Hiccup back from the desk before propping himself up with one arm laid across it, head tilted with a sly yet somehow friendly grin as he regarded Dagur.

"Name's Nick Wilde, Narnian police force," he formally introduced. "We haven't been properly introduced yet so if I may ask who you are?"

"Dagur the Formerly Deranged."

"Formerly, huh?" the fox mused, pursing his lips in thought. "Well, since I don't know you personally I can give the benefit of the doubt here and maybe that will help us all here. Judy here is my partner, and she can do the same." He shifted slightly to face Dagur more head on, dragging a chair up with a back paw and sitting down while Judy took up the other half of the seat behind him.

"Okay, Dagur," Nick continued, splaying his hands in a "here's the low-down" motion, "I haven't been around long enough to be told everything going on here between you guys so let me see if I can at least try and get most of this straight, and do correct me if I'm wrong. Former con-mammal to supposedly reforming crackpot, sound good?"

When Dagur gave only the slightest of perplexed nods, he continued. "Alright here goes: there's a guy trying to make a name for himself, prove himself to the world as the great man, the warrior he always dreamed of himself being, but he does so in the wrong manner by developing a reputation of insanity and fear. Maybe he has a thing against dragons, or a bit of envy for those who work with them so seemingly flawlessly, so whoopsie, he gets off on the wrong foot with Berk and also happens to attack a relatively peaceful people who, double whoopsie, happen to harbor a girl he either likes or is related to much to everyone's surprise, setting the stage for some very unpleasant interactions later on.

"And of course whoopsie number trio, not only is he on Berk's bad side, but he makes a move that ends in abject and total failure and his butt in jail, where he learns about earlier said girl and her connection to him and gains plenty of time to reflect on his past decisions. Finally he realizes that this isn't the person he wants to be at all and so he tries to find ways to change all that, but that's made all the harder because he's stuck here surrounded by people whom he's not liked at all by and whom he's given no former excuse to trust him. That sound about right?"

Dagur had developed quite the puckered lipped, shocked expression, clearly not expecting the vulpine in the chair before him to lay out basically his whole life story after only hearing a handful of snippets to piece it together by. He slowly nodded, before folding his hands politely.

"I've got to give you an honest here, you nailed it pretty well down," he finally said. "Yes, I was both envious of Berk and I hated dragons, and Heather turned out to be the sister lost to the sea years ago that I've missed ever since. Alright fox, I like you; you're good at this I see! For that I'll be of help, and I'll _try_ not to get too snappy if this gets me a little more on the good side with Berk and company, alright?"

Nick's grin widened, in no part from seeing our flabbergasted and slightly miffed expressions (he'd been on the island or at my house for all of a day and a half, and had already cracked through Dagur faster and with more compliance than even my empathetic sister or Hiccup on a good day ever could), and he leaned back against Judy with his hands folding behind his head. "In that case," he drawled, "I'll defer to Officer Fluff here, since she's better at this part. Carrots?"

Judy nodded, and took in a breath as she pulled out a notepad and pen that I'd lent her. "Okay Dagur, you already stated that you know of Viggo at least," she began, "but you haven't had any contact with him or his lackeys in recent times is what I've gathered so far. What about before you ended up here? You ever trade or buy from him?"

"Only occasionally," Dagur replied, shrugging. "Viggo ran with a lot of the same stuff more regular local traders like Johann had, but being he's a dragon hunter he had weapons and contraptions that back then I sometimes felt I just had to have. Hiccup can tell you about my obsession with the Skrill species, and the few times that we ran into each other on rather unpleasant terms.

"The last trade I had with Viggo was right before I ended up here though," he admitted. "Viggo was ecstatic about having a new guy to trade with, this loose bolt even nuttier than me who had a grudge match with the lizard boy of all people, and since we were all working together at the time, I guess not with goals in common but plans that benefitted each other, we met up to barter supplies."

"Hold on, so you're telling me Viggo was trading with Malin?" I spoke up, frown deepening as my concern grew.

Dagur looked up, clearly having hoped the quip about me had had some effect, and deflated when I ignored it. "Yes he was," he replied flatly. "Is it surprising though? Malin needed tips and backup to get past you, Viggo was interested in the information and technology that the guy from your world could give, and I was the maniac who was willing to act as a distraction so the two of them could get exactly what they wanted out of the situation."

"So Viggo may or may not be working with technology beyond the scope of the rest of this world," Judy mused. "That would certainly make his reach a lot wider and easier to maintain."

"It also means his intent to keep Tsefan hidden will be a lot easier to accomplish," Toothless quipped bitterly.

Dagur chuckled darkly. "He's a shrewd businessman who's been on the act for decades already; it would have been easy anyway." He waved his hands widely, ignoring how Hiccup instinctively reached for the fire sword on his leg. "He has outposts from Norway to the coasts of that place they call China way to the east, and he's had the means for years to travel from one end of his empire to the other in a matter of weeks, if not days, and I'll bet it's through using dragons in one way or another."

"Do you happen to have any ideas on where he might try to hide a young dragon?" Judy pressed, drawing another guffaw out of the redhead.

"Where? Anywhere!" he exclaimed. "It's not Mysteel, but the metals he uses are hardened beyond the tampering range of most dragon fire and he's got more storehouses than just the outposts! Toothless' kid could be hidden under a mountain, tied up in the back of a storehouse somewhere, or even in an ocean cave! Your buddy Eret would probably have a better idea of the guy's hiding places than I would, and Viggo always changes things so that he's kept hard to follow. You want an advantage over him, you're going to need someone who operates how he does on your side."

Dagur paused, a thoughtful look glazing over his eyes before it was mixed with what I might call hope. "Perhaps…perhaps I could help you look though?"

"That's currently an option definitely _off_ the table," Feren quipped pointedly. "As much as we may appreciate your assistance here, you know that Stoick would never okay letting you out, not yet at least. It's only been a couple of years since the attack you jointly helped with after all."

"Aw, come on," Dagur begged, spreading his hands pleadingly. "Yes, my past reputation doesn't earn gleaming stars in any way but I'm trying to turn a new…leaf, they say, right? Anyway, Viggo knows that I was an enemy of you guys; he'd be more inclined to let his men listen to me, and I need something to help me start proving to Heather that I can actually act like a civil person, a brother even!"

"It's worth a shot," Judy noted, tapping the pencil she held against her chin. "We could keep him in check I'm sure, whoever he goes with, and I know people can change. This fuzzhead's proof of that after all." Her thumb jerked in Nick's direction, and the fox scoffed in mock offense as his ears flattened and his mouth quirked in a half-amused, half annoyed smirk at the jab.

Hiccup sighed. "We'll keep it in mind," he partially relented. "Dagur, you know that my father is the one man you ultimately have to convince here to let you free, and he may well like you less than I still do right now, and that's saying something. We cannot take you with us right now, but perhaps if we're still stuck in a couple of weeks' time, then at most we can maybe drop a line with the Chief for a probation of sorts. I will not make any solid promises right now though."

Dagur deflated, but his eyes sparkled a little more than before; he thought that maybe there was opportunity to leave at some point. I knew I wasn't jumping at the idea of letting the Deranged (even if he claimed Formerly) out, but he wasn't lying either about his intentions, at least not directly. I hadn't announced it of course, but the infrared vision of the Whispering Death had been active in my eyes since we'd started conversing with the man. Had he been deceptive about any of it, I would have known immediately.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised, but alright," Dagur breathed. "But, uh…could I at least perhaps request just one thing?"

"What?" Hiccup asked wearily.

"Would it be possible for me to as for at least a little something more than just a hole in a cave to stay in? Please? My back's been killing me thanks to that bed in there."

"That I think we can arrange," I said. "Hiccup, he's at least earned that much by cooperating here. You find him a better room, and take Toothless and Feren with you; the rest of us will head back to the hall to let Stoick know of the change in pace for Dagur and sort out everyone to finally prepare to head out. Sound good?"

"Can I at least punch him once before we go?" Cami spoke up for the first time, surprisingly, since we'd entered the room.

"No," I said flatly, and she crossed her arms in a pout.

"Sounds good," Hiccup said, before backtracking. "To his earlier question, not yours Cami, as much as that would amuse me. I'll see you guys there." He then motioned for Dagur to follow him and taking the two larger animals in the room with him while the rest of us hung back for a moment.

"So Viggo might have some really special toys to play with," Nick mused, leaning back against the desk while his tail flicked curiously. "Can't be any more advanced than the stuff we're wearing here, so what do we have to really worry about?" He fingered the button set on his chest near the newly installed barrier gem with curiosity (Zipeau had explicitly warned him not to turn on the booster set the buttons controlled that was settled in a pack on his shoulders; they were powerful and could even permit flight, but for very short periods, and the Stenonychosaurus had stressed "emergencies only" to both the fox and rabbit equipped with them since neither of them really had the means to escape a fall on their own like most of the rest of us).

"Careful with that," Judy warned, seeing his emerald eyes lighting up mischievously as her own narrowed, ears dropping in a glare. "And from what I've seen the past couple of days, I'm not going to assume anything about anyone out here just yet."

* * *

"So ye claim he's behaving fer once, eh?" Gobber chuckled, taking the hook attachment on his arm off and replacing it with a brush before stroking down his mustache. "If Heather's havin' that kind o' influence while back home –or with Thuggory, who knows these days? –maybe we should 'ave her visit more often."

"And that would just end up with her skewering her brother," Astrid snorted back. "He wants to convince her, he'd have to do something miraculous, and that's not Dagur's style; we all know it."

"Well, even if he is acting on his best behavior, Dagur has not served out his sentence properly yet," Stoick announced with finality, leaning back in his current seat as Valka nodded in agreement next to him. "And, one concern at a time; while you're gone I'll be busy with Zipeau and Val to find out who was contacting Viggo as well as trying to keep our other young Furies in line. Yes Shira, I see you over there. Drop the cook's chicken."

All eyes swiveled to find the silvery young Night Fury with her head craned over a table in the back near the community kitchen, a freshly plucked chicken in her jaws. Now caught, she gave a guilty smile and dropped it before scurrying away over to where her siblings were lying and hiding behind them.

"Yeah, told him I'm not making promises," Hiccup answered, showing up through the Hall doors with Toothless and Feren in tow and refocusing our attention on the conversation. "But we all know at this point that we can't fully dismiss it either Dad; we've had enough evidence ourselves that people change. Heck, I know of a former dragon trapper who rides with us now, and a certain rattlesnake in the room who was once a megalomaniac's lackey."

"Said rattler would rather not recall those days," Jake quipped, earning chuckles from Cami and Holly. "And since we're all here again now," he continued, rising up off the floor to a height where everyone could see him, "I say it's best we head out, since there's no point lollygagging here anymore. Everybody have what they need packed up?"

"Those who need to pack things, at least," Kingsley smirked. Sasha sent him a glare in response; the snakes had it easiest, wearing only their armor and able to just hunt where they went when they needed to. Most of the rest of us had more to prepare for, including the big cats.

"Hey, while you're gone, can I interrogate Dagur more?" Ruffnut added coyly from the side, grinning as she bounced Debbie on her knee.

"Ruff, no," Fishlegs pleaded. "We don't need to teach our little Debbie to antagonize criminals! Chief, back me up here, please!"

"Yeah, we don't want Snack Cake here to start acting like you and your brother," Snotlout teased. "Ha ha! Oof!"

He was cut off when Ruffnut hoisted Debbie into her left arm, stomped over, and punched him squarely in the gut. "I told you not to use that name!" she snapped as Debbie screamed with laughter, glaring down at the doubled-over Viking who was now half-focused on the pain, half on how the heck the usually absent-minded Viking woman had managed to locate the one seam between the parts of his Myscale outfit to jab at.

"Okay!' he wheezed, raising a hand in defensive surrender. "You won't hear me repeat it!"

" Heh, I'm sure 'hear' is the operative term there; we'll see how long that lasts though," Cami snickered. "So sorry you got stuck with him Hawken; good luck with that."

"Yeah yeah, he'll behave or I'll sic Natasha on him," I drawled, before clapping my hands together. "Alright, enough of the chatting; everyone with me, head to the plaza and we're taking off. Holly, keep safe and help Hiccup and Judy keep Nick in line" (I did not miss Nick's eyes go lidded as he held his smirk at my remark) "and everyone, good luck. Remember, turn on the barrier gems only when you need them, and the long-distance radio relays are for emergency use only! See you soon, hopefully."

I turned and followed my group out the doors and down the steps, morphing as I went. "Alright people," I spoke up, "most of you know the drill, link hands and hold tight! First stop, that little fort on the south end of Norway."

When I was met with mostly confused, blank stares, I blinked and chuckled. "Oh, right; most of you haven't even been there yet. Eh, maybe we can work that to our advantage."

* * *

"Okay, everybody sure we've got our stuff squared away? Legs, you sure you're okay with this? We won't be as far away but you did only come back a week or so ago."

Hiccup didn't really want to make Fishlegs leave Berk again so soon, but the man had insisted that it was okay. And shortly, he did so again.

"Yeah Hiccup, we're fine," he claimed, hefting his pack and walking over to his wife and daughter. "Keep her in line, alright honey?" he asked softly, before his eyes turned pleading. "And please, don't do anything that will make the Chief complain about it to me when we get back."

Ruff chuckled darkly. "Come on Fish, you know me; pranks are a necessity, but I won't hurt anyone."

Fishlegs sighed, knowing it was the best he was going to get, before turning to Deborah and smiling widely. "Alright Debbie, you'll be a good girl while daddy's gone, right? You make sure mom behaves for me."

"Yeah Dada," Debbie exclaimed enthusiastically, bouncing up and down as she stretched her arms out to her father, who grabbed them and pulled her close for a kiss on her head and a close hug.

"Daddy be good too," the little girl suddenly ordered, her face turning very serious in a child's classic stern pout and drawing laughter from everyone nearby.

Fishlegs laughed as well and nodded sincerely. "I promise honey; I promise."

Family mush over, everyone in the two remaining groups headed outside together, Hiccup's party all hopping onto their dragons (or pairing up with someone who had a dragon) and Eret's group joining hands and looking to Loki. As they vanished, and the dragons took off, Stoick and Valka watched with their own dragons from the steps of the Hall.

"Good luck," Valka said softly, watching on as the rest of the Night Fury youngsters sidled up next to her. "Find him quickly. Lord please, let them find him quickly."

* * *

 **A/N-That's right, Dagur's back. And we'll be seeing more of him later on too, as he's somewhat instrumental. Anyway, what do you think? As always, let me hear your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews! And yes, I managed to get this chapter out earlier than another 3-week interval, and we'll see if I can hold to that, but can't make a promise; work still sucks, and time is short.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	8. Chapter 7: Empty Outpost, Empty Hopes

**A/N-Alright, so it looks like a 2 week, 3 week schedule is going to be the most likely update speed, unless something miraculous happens that opens up my time to write (oh hey look: work. Blegh...).**

 **In the meantime though, the new chapter is here, and we're going to be visiting some old places with familiar, if perhaps not particularly friendly, faces today. Read on...**

* * *

Chapter 7

Empty Outpost, Empty Hopes

/

 _How does it feel when your first try falls flat?_

 _How does it taste, that bite of sour fruit?_

 _Truly, it is vile and bitter_

 _And ever more so when the cause is life and death_

 _Better to rely on your friends by your side_

 _Than that reach toward your goal_

 _At least then they'll be there when needed_

 _To fill that hole that's left behind_

 _-0-_

"So how do you think they'll hold up?" Ember asked over the noise of the electricity surging around us. "I mean, it's almost certainly their first time riding dragons, and I know there are people outside our four allied tribes that will hunt animals like them, sapient or not."

"True, but I think anyone who tries to shoot a fox with body armor on is asking for it anyway," I retorted, chuckling. "Judy will love the experience one way or another, especially flying; Nick will too I'll bet, but he'll either act like it's nothing or go all theatrical about falling to his death."

"So you think we've got another ham in the group now like the two of us?" Sasha laughed, referring to himself and Teshra.

I laughed in turn. "Oh absolutely. Wait…now that I think about it, that might not be a particularly good thing."

"That's our cue Sash," Teshra giggled. "Time to corrupt the fox."

"Don't think he'll need any help with that."

By lightning bolt, we were approaching Sturmlein within only a few minutes of travel; it had been years since anyone in the gang had been through here, back when I was still new at utilizing metaphysical abilities, and the idea of dragons as mere intelligent animals was still the common thought through even the dragon-accepting part of the archipelago. Turning to address Snotlout and Fireworm, ironically enough the only ones amongst our search party (consisting as well of Amethyst, Orha, Fenrir, Silas, Rachel, and Natasha) to have visited this place before, I asked, "So, should we be courteous and tell Harald we're going to be coming through, or should we just barge into the fort unannounced?"

I caught Ember's incredulous look (yes, I had just asked Snotlout that question), before waiting for a reply. Snotlout opened his mouth with his answer on his tongue almost immediately, before his brows furrowed and he frowned at me.

"You already know what I would say, and you're going to veto it, aren't you?" he quipped, inciting chuckles from the others.

My smile turned into a twisted grin. "Yeah, pretty much."

The laughter got louder, and Snotlout fell further into pouting.

With the town approaching and spreading out before us, I dove down and aimed for an open space near the coastal docks, landing with a decent thud. Thunder crashed as we rematerialized and let go of each other's hands (or paws as the case was). Around us, several dozen faces peeked up as they peered around the crates, wagons, and other objects they'd dove behind when the massive electric "object" had hit earth, cautiously seeing if it was actually safe to come out into the open. Then, several of the villagers blinked owlishly in stupefied recognition when I demorphed, blue and white wings replaced by my black, blue-and-silver lined duster (now even longer than the former lengthy coat I'd originally had, having been modified over the last couple years).

"My sincerest apologies for the shocking entrance," I announced, ignoring Sasha and Teshra's snicker at my pun as I turned in the direction of the town square. "Joke intended by the way. If I may ask any of you, is Harald still around here?"

"Y-you are that dragon man who was here years ago, aren't you?" one middle-aged redhead woman put forth, stepping out onto the path with her purple and red dress flaring out around her legs. "The one all of the traders share stories of now; are you here to cause chaos in our home again?" A couple of echoing voices of agreement sounded nearby as people got over their initial surprise and began connecting the dots.

I grimaced and shook my head. "No, not if I can help it, but my friends and I here are on a mission of urgency. Something of great importance to us has been stolen, and we're trying to track down the ones responsible, quickly if at all possible. Is Harald still the governor here, or has someone else taken over?"

"Naw, he's still around," an older, silver-headed man piped up from where he leant against an old stack of lumber. "Had te make major changes with our tradin' though when ye came around last time, so he might be nae too happy with you showin' up again. If ye think he'll stand te see ya though, three streets west you'll find his administration building."

"Well, thank you sir for the information," Ember spoke up, taking the lead as she stepped by and tipped her head in the man's direction (and drawing several eyes as the movement made her hair glint crimson in the patchy sunlight). "We want to be cordial unless something really goes south, so I'm hoping this remains a peaceful encounter."

Whispers and pointed stares followed us along the streets, people clearing the way at the sight of not only large fire breathing reptiles but the wolf and tiger that walked with us. The building we were looking for stood out rather prominently at least, for a couple of reasons: it was large, the wooden walls polished smooth and tarred over to make it waterproof, the surface painted cream with a material I couldn't quite identify. More importantly however, out in front of the door stood a man dressed in a slick gray-brown woven outfit, topped with a dirty blond head beginning to gray, with his arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently.

"I see word travels faster here than we do," I joked lightly, despite knowing full well that I'd likely see no smile appear on his face. "Your town appears to have gotten on well enough without the input of dragon trading, or at least I hope it has been."

"Yes, since you last showed up we've tried preventing any such items or animals from passing through here, for fear of drawing you here again," Harald quipped. "With the demand that's grown up for it income has been greatly depleted too, and we've had to modify how we live here heavily because of it. Needless to say, your face is not exactly a cheerful or welcome sight around here, Hawken."

"Altering your lifestyle so you don't have to kill someone to keep on should not be such a grand issue," Amethyst quipped, drawing widened eyes.

I nodded in agreement, ignoring the looks that had worn off their novelty some time ago. "Amethyst is right," I said, "but if you have truly been so hard-hit, then perhaps we can assist in making that up to you." I stepped forward and offered Harald a closed fist, palm facing down. "Take this for your troubles, and help your village remain sturdy here."

Unsurprisingly Harald regard me with no small level of suspicion, but cautiously held out his hand. A moment later he nearly dropped the emerald I placed into it moments later anyway as he let out a gasp.

"No…this isn't…is it?"

"A flawless emerald sourced from the most expert gem collector on this earth," I said almost casually. "It's worth a fortune and should do well for you."

Harald imitated a fish for several moments as the crowd around us grew from curiosity, before he finally managed to find the words to speak again. "W-why would you do this for us, even after what brought you here last time?"

"Because," this time Silas spoke up, giving a soft smile (or as soft as a raptor's can be anyway), "it's not like we're dragon fanatics alone; we're here to help all people we can. Doesn't do much to say we're godly people and then fail to lend a hand."

"And, if dragons are such a commodity perhaps there is still another way we can help you," Ember added. "Our dragons shed scales and teeth all the time, and our friend Trader Johann often takes the excess off our hands. We could direct him here; as you can see by our outfits, scales can be rather stylish and effective protection among other things."

"They're effective even when they fall from the skin?" Harald queried, before pursing his lips. "Every other merchant who's ever come through here always claimed it had to be whole to do anything to protect you against fire or weapons."

"No, you just have to know how to work them," Fenrir retorted, grinning. "Doesn't do a whole lot of good to have exposed flammable stitches amongst the flameproof pieces."

"I…do suppose that is true," Harald mused, before standing up straight and pocketing the emerald he'd been still admiring. "I wonder though, as I doubt you are here just to make amends after all these years. No one is that altruistic. You're not here again looking for another kidnapped dragon, are you?"

"I'd argue your first point there; we lead an active life however that keeps us from running around repenting from everything that we'd like to," I answered. "But unfortunately yes we are here for a dragon. Dragon hunters kidnapped my half-nephew, son of Amethyst here."

"She's your sister?"

"In an odd manner of speaking, though the explanation is complicated and you wouldn't want to hear it. You wouldn't happen to have seen ships with this insignia on it, would you?"

I reached into a pocket inside my jacket and extracted a small sheet of paper, one I had drawn out the insignia of the Trapper's League on back at the village. Harald took it, studying the paper with scrutinizing eyes for only a moment before his face lit with recognition.

"Ah, yes, though nothing particularly recently," he answered, handing it back. "They were among the traders we often turned away, always proffering dragon hides and products. Occasionally they offered other things like far eastern and southern spices and textiles, but they specialized in once-living things."

He paused as he thought over something new that apparently struck him then. "Although, I do recall they passed through here several months ago with some sort of exotic plant that was rather interesting, but their requirements surrounding any offers for trading for the things were ludicrous."

"So you turned them away, but they have been through here," Amethyst pressed. "How recently did you last see any sign of them?"

"More than a month ago at least," Harald responded. The Night Fury deflated. "Then Tsefan hasn't been here," she muttered dejectedly, before he eyes snapped upward. "We need to keep moving."

"You may still visit Korin's trading fort to the north however," Harald suggested, looking toward the mountains rising beyond the town. "There are overland paths to it that we cannot block, as the place operates outside our borders, and other mooring locations are among the fjords. As far as I know the man has shied away from his former practices as well after…well, after your visit, but he's far less stoic in his choices than I am."

"Then we'll leave you be and be on our way there, as I believe that was an eventual intent of ours," Fenrir spoke, his ear twitching curiously. "Hawken, I know you can tell if someone is fibbing and you haven't given such indications, so I think it's safe to say that we'll find no keys here."

I nodded affirmation, and tipped my head to Harald. "I will be sure to send word to Johann o include you in his stops," I said. "Ember, don't let me forget that whenever we get back. Harald, thank you for what help you have given us, and I wish you luck here."

I bent down, morphing and letting Sasha climb on as Fenrir boarded Orha with Ember and Amethyst picked up the raptors. With a short wave, we left the ground then and headed north along the road leading out of the town.

Despite being very far to the north (southern Norway lies along the same latitude as the middle regions of Canada after all) the somewhat warmer waters that flowed along the coasts from across the Atlantic meant that with spring, temperatures rapidly became mild; snow could occur of course still, but it was rarely much below freezing. Around us therefore, the forests were waking up, green buds filling tree branches and flowers covering open patches and hillsides. Stripes of pinks and violets decorated mountainsides framed in patchy blue skies, a beautiful sight that was very starkly contrasted by the structure on the ground below. It was still as displeasing to the eye as before, despite having been rebuilt almost from the ground up by necessity in stone and sharp-ended logs. The fort was smaller than before, evidencing only a handful of side rooms on the structure and a narrower courtyard.

"We'll extend at least a common courtesy and land outside," I said, surveying the layout. "Korin will probably be even less pleased to see us than Harald originally was, so if anyone has ideas on leverage besides threatening to destroy the fort again, which I _don't_ want to do, let me know."

"Awww, come on, that was awesome!" Snotlout complained. "Much as the twins are annoying, they do get one thing right: blowing things up is fun!"

"You know that I know that Snotlout," I growled. "There's a reason we go out and shoot up tannerite all the time."

"But, that is beside the point; we don't have any evidence yet that these guys have done anything to deserve that again, Lout," Ember quipped. "If need be, maybe we can just pay for information. If Korin's a businessman and he has any connections to Viggo, a high enough price will buy his tongue."

"Well, don't use all our money," Teshra muttered. "If we're out too long we won't have anything later to buy food with!"

"Oh please Tesh," Amethyst snapped exasperatedly. "You're a dragon; lazy as you are you are more than capable of catching your own food like most of the rest of us. And Hawken can probably bargain just about anything for money if we need it."

"Maybe he'll sell this annoying little reptile we all know and save us the trouble," Natasha joked, earning giggles from Sasha and the other two raptors and an indignant squeak from the little dragon.

Banter time was over though, so I dove down and the others followed, listening to the shouts rising from the people within the fort as we swept past and flared, landing softly on the path in front of the fort entrance.

Okay, so most of us landed softly; Fireworm chose to barely slow down at all, landing with a bang and nearly throwing Snotlout off (she would have succeeded had he not been clipped in to his saddle for once).

"Aaahhh! Are you _trying_ to kill me, you hard-headed reptile?!" he yelled indignantly.

::Oops,:: Fireworm commented, smug grin clearly evident as her rider shakily climbed off.

"Halt! State your business here and…wait a minute," a familiar voice spoke from the top of the guard post above the gate, and as I demorphed I looked up to find the passingly remembered dark-haired visage of Korin staring down at us incredulously. Though visibly a bit older now, he hadn't changed at all otherwise: short-cropped hair, a ghost of a beard on his chin, and a heavily displeased glare darkening his bluish eyes. Yep, he'd definitely recognized me at least.

"What in all hells are you doing here again?!" Korin shouted down at us none too softly.

"Ironically, the exact same thing almost that I was here for years ago," I called back up nonchalantly, ignoring his tone. "We're looking for a kidnapped young Night Fury, my nephew in fact."

"Oh really, your neph- no, never mind, I don't even want to know. First off, what makes you think I'd ever be willing to chat after what you did to me and my fort? Second, fat lot of good it does you looking here; I swore off dealing with dragons –and most other larger animals as well- unless they're already dead! And Night Fury skin is kind of recognizable, and nothing like that has ever come through here since you!"

"If you have no dragons here and nothing Night Fury related then you have absolutely nothing to worry about from us," Orha answered back. "But a search has to start somewhere and this place is a known trading location with a history, or so it would seem. Perhaps you've had dealings with a certain Viggo Grimborn or his men recently."

Korin didn't answer for a moment, skeptic gazes all that he returned. Eventually he let out a frustrated sigh. "So does every creature that you travel with speak, dragon boy?" he muttered tiredly, eliciting snickers.

"Eh, all here except Fireworm there, which you would probably be happy about if you could understand her, but it's mostly because of extenuating circumstances," Sasha tossed up, causing the man to bury his forehead into the wood border he leaned against in an abject face-palm of sorts.

"Why do I even ask?" he complained, before looking up again. "Alright, whether or not I deal with said trader, what incentive do I have to work with you? You destroyed my fort, my reputation, and threatened me out of my main trade the last time, and it took me two whole years to build up my work again and return to even a semblance of normality."

"We can offer you trade opportunities, Korin," I answered. "When you have a live dragon you have a far more regular source of some valuable materials, if you insist on looking at it that way, and Berk has surplus of some of that; we have already discussed a similar situation with Sturmlein itself even. Or, we can pay you directly for information." I raised my hand, and the air rippled as a small amethyst materialized in my palm.

I knew I'd hooked him a second later; it was clear in his eyes. But Korin clearly was trying to avoid looking as if he'd been already sold out by the financial prospect. Slowly, he slid back from the wall and his arms crossed in a show of contemplation as he turned away and walked into the fort. Out of the corner of my eye I saw questioning looks show up on the others, so I held up a finger to tell them to wait.

Sure enough, faint footsteps traipsed down a stairway inside, and then the doors of the fortress swung slowly open to reveal a still cautious Korin standing before us, guards holding swords on either side of him and clearly still expecting trouble themselves.

"Alright, I'll hear you this once," he toned. "Since I know I can't prevent you dragons from getting in here, I ask that you remain in plain sight in the middle of the courtyard. You and you," he pointed to Ember and I, "come with me and we will discuss your deal for what I know."

"Hey, what about me?" Snotlout complained, spreading his hands wide.

"I remember you, and even your stories travel on rare occasions," Korin replied flatly.

Snotlout's face turned bright red as Sasha and Teshra both burst out laughing. "Ha ha! Your reputation precedes you, Snottie!" Sasha teased, batting him with a paw.

"Shut up Sasha," Snotlout muttered in return, crossing his arms and pouting again.

Ember and I chuckled as well as we followed Korin in, leaving behind the others in the courtyard as requested as we took a left and stepped through another door, just beyond the stairway leading to the walk path above around the perimeter of the fortress walls. Inside, a small wooden table stood surrounded by equally old-looking chairs, the walls lined with boxes and leathery cases filled with papers, scrawled with what was no doubt transaction records, barter arrangements, and other such trading details.

"I will refuse to disclose anything without some sort of deposit up front," Korin said evenly as he closed the door and sat down on the far side of the table, gesturing with one hand to the chairs closer to us that Ember and I took. "The Trapper's Coalition has always been an agreeable trade source for me, even after I turned away from most living things in my own business here, so I am quite hesitant to say anything as you might understand that may or may not lead back to me."

"I can promise you that you won't be mentioned if we run into them and find what we're after," I assured. "The squealer would most likely be Snotlout, and, well, you didn't exactly invite him in here anyway so that problem is taken care of." I held out my hand, and placed the amethyst from before onto the table in front of Korin, before leaning back and scrutinizing his reaction as he carefully picked up the stone, examining it closely as one would expect from an experienced tradesman.

Eventually he nodded, placing the gem into a pocket on his vest for safekeeping. "I should not be as surprised as I am that you managed to access such jewels, I guess," he toned. "I have only ever seen an amethyst that flawless once before, when an envoy from the Middle East passed this way."

"Probably because the source is one and the same," I drawled. "We're very close friends with a certain someone once known as the Alchemist by some. However, that is a discussion to be left for a time when my friends and I are not in a great hurry."

I maneuvered away from that topic and simultaneously the trader's increasingly intrigued gaze; at the very least I knew I could pull anything from him now that he knew of my possible wealth and connections, but we didn't need to get off track. "The way you reacted when Orha mentioned Viggo and the fact that you spoke of the Trapper's Coalition with decent readiness tells me that you definitely hold familiarity with the people we are searching out. Have you perhaps spoken with Viggo in recent times?"

Korin quirked an eyebrow, and then burst out laughing. "Viggo himself?" he guffawed. "Gods no; Viggo never comes out to deal personally with transactions unless it's of extreme importance to him. I only see his subordinates or rarely his brother Ryker."

"So who was the last person you dealt with among them, and for what?" Ember queried, leaning forward.

"Uh, couple of weeks ago I think, last person of the Coalition to come through was a man named…Gremble, I think? Darian Gremble; they were looking for supplies for a hunting trip along the coast, or so they said. I carry ropes, nets, pitons, other amenities, and they were offering items from the Far East: silks and furs, precious metals, the lot. He said Viggo had ordered something incredibly scarce that was to be shipped back east, but he and the men with him never specified the identity when I asked and I didn't press the issue; if it wasn't making me money, I don't need to know anyway. I thought it was maybe some sort of plant, because some of those things have been in high demand in the Asiatics and there have been several trade enterprises for botanicals set up as far as the coast of Africa now, but I'm going to throw a guess now and think that maybe they were the ones after your Night Fury."

"Unfortunately at least the first name does sound familiar. They said they were heading down the coast; you think they lied about their destination?"

"Would it be that much of a surprise if they intended to kidnap a dragon from under the noses of the likes of you? They might have lied about where the 'product' is headed too, but if I were mad enough to nab…you said the dragon was your nephew somehow, Hawk?...to nab the dragon man's kin, I'd want to get as far away as possible afterward myself."

"Alright then, slightly different question now," I said. "Thank you Korin, as I think you may have given us a crucial lead already, but since you're a trader, even if you're not a traveling merchant type, do you have any knowledge of the routes or ports Viggo's organization might use? By this point Tsefan might already be halfway across Europe, but if we can possibly intercept whoever's transporting him, that would be our best bet."

"Of course; any respectable merchant worth his salt knows the major routes. It'll cost you separately, but I might be willing to sell you a map of the ports and common merchant roads," Korin mused, standing up to turn and rummage through a stack of old papers. "I would not guarantee that your Night Fury is anywhere in Europe anymore though; Viggo has means of transporting valuable objects extremely quickly; I acquired an African Slithersong many years ago and sold it to Ryker; barely two weeks later he was already back with Japanese weapons he'd sold the dragon for. I've never been able to root out how they do so, again because it's not really benefitting me to know, but I suspect they do more than just hunt dragons, if you understand what I mean. I…now I know it's around here –ah, there it is."

With a flourish the trader pulled out a coiled, yellowed sheet of paper, walking over and unrolling it across the table surface. "These are expensive because they take a long time to make," he warned, "and I only ever have a few on hand. One of these is typically worth three silver coins, but considering the stone you gave me already I'll cut you a deal: two silver and a copper."

He looked at us expectantly, and my gaze turned to Ember; we had divided up who carried what in case any one of us lost something in our travels, so while I carried the gemstones actually on hand (ignoring that I could make small ones or turn other objects into jewels if needed), she carried the actual money itself. I pitied the thief that attempted to grab anything metal off fire girl though.

Ember nodded and pulled out the bag she had in her pack, unzipping it and counting out the three coins, handing them over to Korin.

"This map's yours then," he said, pushing it toward us. I took it and looked over the scrawls upon it; many of the words and such were in the new Nordic runes, so it would take me some time to catch on to what was written (I envied the Berkians, as they picked up the English alphabet I used far faster than I had theirs), but the trails and roads were clear: ports across the northern Siberian coasts, where there was open water at least during the summer, roads snaking to the north of the Urals and north of Mongolia, and then the networks trailing down from Europe and the Middle East to India and China, marked all in bold.

"Viggo tends to enforce travel in the most inhospitable of navigable corridors; I pity his men," Korin said. "He branches off from the Siberian coasts, but stays where thieves are uncommon. Not that many are stupid enough to try robbing the Coalition again if they survive the first attempt. I warn you though, if he manages to trace this information back to me, I will not be happy."

"We won't be telling anyone, we can assure you that much," Ember reassured.

Korin nodded, though slowly, making sure it was clear he still didn't fully trust us. "Good. And I also warn you: when you think you've outsmarted the man, double check your back. He is familiar with every species on earth it seems, and how to deal with them, and he was smart enough to keep his own dealings on the periphery of the attentions of those two maniacs Jezebel and Drago Bludvist when they were still around. He doesn't pull punches, he hits when and where it will hurt the most."

"Yeah, we know," Ember said softly, sharing a glance with me.

As we stepped out of the room, we came upon an incredibly amusing yet unsurprising sight (at least for Ember and I): Sasha and Fireworm had Snotlout pinned to the ground while Teshra rolled across the dirt laughing; everyone else in stood by impassively or with an irritated expression adorned on their faces.

"Okay, alright, break it up!" Ember snapped. "What'd the bonehead do this time?"

"Nothing!" Snotlout immediately insisted, trying to remove himself from underneath the tiger and dragon; considering the Viking's gift, I was impressed too, but strength means little if you have no leverage.

"He overheard the guards talking, and made a comment about how I'd probably be worth a pretty penny," Sasha countered in a singsong voice dripping with faux saccharine tones. "I though holding him down so Amethyst could sit on him would be appropriate."

"Come on, it was a joke!"

"Made at the exact wrong time, numbskull."

"Alright, I'm more agreeing with Sasha here, Snotlout," I snapped. "We're here looking for a kidnapped dragon at a place where I once rescued a tiger among other animals; that is the absolute WORST time and place to comment on selling one of the Descendants, no matter how annoying he may also be at times."

Ignoring the sniggering coming from the others, and Sasha's deadpan expression, I knelt down next to Snotlout's head, and fixed him with a warningly sweet smile. "But, I'll tell you what: you apologize, and I'll think about telling them to let you up. Don't apologize, and not only will I also tell Amethyst to either body-slam or eat you, I might tell Nick when we get back about your spectacular performance at least year's Thawfest dragon race."

"I'm not eating him," Amethyst called from the background.

Snotlout paled. "You wouldn't."

"You sure?" I tittered. "I find sarcasm and roasting hilarious, and we all know a particular reynard now who is impeccable at it."

Yep, that did it. Snotlout deflated and a perfectly weak expression filled his eyes. "Alright, I'm sorry Sasha," he said quietly. "Happy?"

"Sorry for what?" the tiger led on, not really hiding his enjoyment of this.

"Sorry for joking that your stripy rear end would look good as a throw rug, alright? I'll try to remember your sensitive emotions next time."

Sasha sat there for a moment, as if thinking it over, before nodding to Fireworm. "Eh, I'll accept it this time," he said flippantly as he backed off and let Snotlout get up to dust himself off. "But don't let it happen again or maybe we'll get Fireworm to eat you."

::Yeah right, he tastes like mutton that was left out for a week too long,:: the Nightmare quipped. ::You eat him.::

I sighed and glanced at Korin. "Yeah, this is what I get to deal with every day; aren't you envious"

"I think you can keep them," he muttered back.

"Like I actually have a choice," I sighed. "Alright people, we've got a heading so saddle up and link up. And I hope you all have something heavier to put over your suits, 'cause we're going to be in Siberia for a little while."

* * *

The cart jerked and rattled incessantly along the rocky path as it was pulled along at high speed. Trussed up as he was, Tsefan grimaced with each jolt, unable to adjust himself to avoid knocking his head against the sides of his cage, or landing on his already awkwardly coiled tail. He didn't know where he was, having passed out several times over the past few days (the paucity of nourishment, staved off only by trickles of water offered uncaringly at night, didn't help), but the environment had changed a lot since they'd left the coasts.

He'd been dragged along in a similar cart through a forested, mountainous land before being transferred to a ship for a second time, and now here he was crossing land again with no end in sight. Forest had given away several times to fields and plains, and then only hours ago to rocky, sparsely tree-dotted mountains, a somewhat familiar sight, but the young Night Fury had never seen monoliths of such size. They had traveled much further south, but the mountain peaks were still scoured by snowfields and glaciers above the valleys they were traveling through, at least from what little Tsefan could see between the crates and canvas that surrounded and covered his cage.

The entire trip had been overseen by the man that had captured him in the first place too, Darian. The trapper now sat in the "driver's seat" of the cart that Tsefan was trapped on, one of several in a caravan. What Tsefan had not expected was what they were using to pull the carts, and thereby the reason they had managed to travel so rapidly: dragons.

Dervishes had been used on the first leg, and now the carts were speeding along behind Thunderclaws, the bulky reptiles moving at a pace no horse could ever hope to match. Several times the young Night Fury had tried to gain the attention of one of them, in hopes that they might band with him against their masters, but unfortunately Tsefan knew that even if he could do more than whine and wheeze around the muzzle that dug into his snout, the other dragons wouldn't bother even responding to him. The few times he'd managed to catch a glimpse of one of their faces, he saw nothing but passive acceptance; their current life was all they knew, for better or worse, and they'd been trained and accustomed to serving the hunters. To break away from them was a concept currently beyond their understanding, and with it the notion of helping any other captive dragon escape.

The cart jolted hard again and Tsefan slammed into the cage bars again, hitting a bruise that had long since formed from the impacts. The little dragon failed to quell the muffled yelp of pain it elicited, and he fell to wheeze again on the cage floor. A shifting noise ahead of him told him that Darian had heard it too, so he steeled himself for the verbal abuse he knew would also come now.

"Uncomfortable in there, I take it?" Darian drawled, lifting up a canvas sheet to peek in at the little black reptile coiled awkwardly inside. "Good. It ain't all bad, tasked with being your guard what with the decent pay it comes with, but if it weren't for you I could've been out traveling still, catching dragons and doing a whole load of things a lot more fun. Guess I'll just have to find a way to make up for that."

 _What a pity, that I'm such a burden on you_ , Tsefan thought sarcastically, trying to convey his words as best he could with his lidded gaze.

Darian only scoffed however. "Yeah, keep glaring at me dragon; you'll have more reason to hate me soon enough you can be sure. I'll be in charge of your punishment as well after all; every time I get a message from Viggo because your overprotective family does something that he doesn't like, you get to bear the brunt of it. And there are plenty of ways I can think of to make your suffering last if you make things difficult as well."

Another wayward rock passed under the wagon wheel, and Darian seemed to anticipate it, rocking the cage with his hand even further. The sharp edge of an imperfectly cut bar dug into Tsefan's tail as a result, scraping a scale loose and causing Tsefan to shudder from the sickening feeling and resulting pain. Darian made to make another scathing jab, but was distracted as the path rounded a bend, the mountains opening up to a scrubby plain devoid of civilization. It had a disturbingly lonely air to it, adding to the chill of the wind that swept across the pale green shrubs that dotted the landscape. In the distance, another line of mountains rose up, jagged and capped with more snow than the range they had just passed through.

"Get a good, long look, scaly," Darian chuckled, sweeping his gaze over the view as a twisted smile reached his eyes, and he pulled the canvas back even further to permit a Tsefan to see a little more clearly. "This'll be your only opportunity to see your new home from the outside."

 _Just until my family finds me,_ Tsefan quipped in his head as he gazed out onto the desolate scene, but that gut feeling of anxiety only dug deeper. The mountains ahead were vast and rugged, and if he was being put into a hole in one of them there were a thousand places they could hide him here from searching eyes. He did not admit it to himself, but deep down, he knew it would be a miracle if he was found any time soon.

* * *

 **A/N-Well, there you go...our first stop was not promising, and things are not looking up for Tsefan himself either (not that they would, what with being in the hands of dragon trappers, and a sadistic one no less). Ah well, much more to come...as always, make sure to leave your thoughts, critiques, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews! Oh, and, as many of you probably know, the new RTTE season came out, which means some time in the future: new Book of Dragons entries!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	9. Chapter 8: Through Northern Waters

**A/N-So, I was hoping to have this out this past weekend, but life happened; in exchange however, it's a long one! Read on...**

* * *

Chapter 8

Through Northern Waters

/

 _Come travel to a place unknown_

 _Take my hand and see_

 _Lands that you have never touched_

 _As new and strange as can be_

 _Marvel at the wondrous sights_

 _And the little things as well_

 _But mind the dangers lurking there_

 _For among roses, thorns do dwell_

 _-0-_

"This is amazing!"

Okay, so admittedly for the first ten minutes he had certainly not thought it was, keeping his eyes firmly shut and refusing to look around as they took off to the north. But eventually, at Judy's high-pitched and exuberant insistence (and Holly's threat to castrate him if he didn't loosen up the not-quite-cuddly death grip he'd had on her waist), Nick had eventually peeked out from behind his eyelids, and just like Astrid had on her first flight with Hiccup and Toothless, his eyes had become glued open and his mouth soon followed at the sight that greeted them.

The waters of the northern Atlantic were a roiling stormy gray-blue below dusted with whitecaps, dotted by the shadows of the clouds that drifted above them, and upon those same waters the occasional green-coated island rose like a sentinel above the sea, connecting water and sky as the sun shone from the south upon them. Around him, Nick could see the other Riders and Descendants either entirely relaxed upon the backs of their dragons or focused resolutely ahead at the mysteries that awaited them, the warm wind riding the southern currents buffeting their hair and looser articles of clothing alongside the rippling wing membranes of the dragons. They were unworried, and that lack of concern about being so high up soon began to take hold in Nick as well. It was no surprise that Judy had taken to flying very rapidly, vibrating with excitement at the new experience from where she was strapped in behind Astrid, but now the fox found it contagious too.

Maybe she was rubbing off on him, he decided; adventures were becoming a thing he actually enjoyed again.

"Told you!" Holly laughed, glancing back at him now that he'd finally stopped trying to bruise her ribs. "And thanks for letting me breathe again. I may be strapped in, but I still don't want to pass out while on dragon back."

"Even if I'd catch you?" Nara queried, though not with any serious concern of such a thing happening.

"Even if, Nara. Not falling off at all would be a lot nicer."

"I wonder if the Griffins would be willing to give rides," Judy mused out loud, and Nick looked over at her and her joyously thoughtful expression. "No wonder they're always in the air; how did we live without flying?"

"Well, I know for a fact that there's never been a fox or bunny born with wings Fluff, so I don't think we were actually meant to be off the ground like this," Nick drawled, though his grin hadn't left. "But, I'll admit I'm starting to think it's because we can still catch rides like this. Ugh, walking everywhere just won't be the same."

"Spoiled now are we?" Astrid laughed, making Thorn drift closer as the other Riders did the same.

"It does tend to be addictive," Fishlegs chuckled. "Unless you're afraid of heights kind of like Holly used to be, but looks like you got past that quickly enough too, Nick."

"Ha! I wasn't scared, just took me by surprise," the fox denied.

"Yeah, totally the reason you looked like you were trying to pop Holly a few minutes ago," Judy prodded.

"Hey, not entirely my fault that she was the closest thing to hold on to. She invited me to ride with her after all."

"And after that experience, it might not happen again," Holly quipped, only half-joking.

"Oh?" Nick toned, turning smug. "Sure you can even manage to pawn me off on one of the others?"

"I'll stick with the raptors, thanks," Embron shot down, glancing back at Quicksilver and Phoenix sitting amongst his spinal crests.

"And I've already got Jake," Hiccup agreed.

"Oh, I'm hurt," Nick sighed dramatically, leaning back and placing a paw over his heart before the grin snapped back on and he looked at the last dragon-rider pair. "How about you, Fishy? Feel like riding with a partner if the sweet-sixteen gets tired of me?"

Fishlegs' expression turned anxious as he stuttered out, "I…well…I-I don't think it would be good for Meatlug to carry more weight even strong as she is Nick, sorry. I'm carrying all the maps and supplies too after all."

The tod tutted in mock disappointment before turning to drape his chin over Holly's shoulder, smiling innocently. "Well, looks like you're stuck with me, Holly-berry."

Thwack!

"Aaaahhh!"

Holly didn't even have to look back as she turned and bipped the fox in the nose. "You can keep the nicknames between you and Judy, thank you very much," she said with just a hint of warning. "We could always see how well foxes do fly on their own, after all."

"Aww, come on, you know you're already attached to me. Oh, thanks for the unwavering support over there Carrots; quit laughing!"

Judy continued giggling on anyway, before waving her arms in wild gesticulations. "Make sure you flap like this really quickly, bottle-brush-butt! That'd be great actually, seeing you flail around like a drunken goose."

"Sadistic bunny."

"Wimpy fox."

"Really. Fine, let's see you go impromptu skydiving instead then!"

"Okay, okay, don't kill each other before we even get to our first destination," Hiccup pleaded. "How about this: until we get there, you tell us what other reasons you're here besides Aslan bringing you out to help us. I know it was mentioned that you've got something you're looking into."

Judy nodded. "Sure! You guys know about the Night Howler thing in the Zootopia movie, right? Well, the real incident involved a plant that we in Narnia call Wildwood. Flowers are kind of similar looking actually, but it grows more like a small bush or tree than a crocus, and likes warmer conditions and"-

"Aaanyway, before Carrots trails off on her agricultural background too much," Nick interjected, ignoring Judy's glare, "animals were being shot with concentrated toxin, we found the perps, and thought we shut the whole issue down then and there. Unfortunately, Wildwood doesn't just grow in Narnia proper, but also near the Calormen territories south of us, and the people there found other uses for the plant as well and so started getting Narnians to smuggle even more of it to them. In return though, stuff's been turning up in Narnia that we would normally never imagine seeing as the tradeoff, so while we're still trying to close off the smuggling ring on our end for our own safety reasons, it won't stop altogether unless we can figure out the end receivers of the Wildwood, which we're sure is not anywhere on that continent. Hence, we're out here, helping you guys and seeing if we can't dig up some answers for our problem while we're at it."

"Wait, I thought the cliffs ran the length of the eastern side of Narnia," Astrid mused. "How could anyone be trading across that?"

"Well, the country doesn't exactly run off the edge of the world, never mind that the earth is round," Judy drawled. "The cliffs break down well to the south, you know, where things start turning tropical, and if you want to fight through the forests there you can reach the east shores. And, you can sail around the end even further south if you can get past the drakes that like living in the volcanoes in the islands around there."

"Not a species that likes people, huh?" Phoenix asked.

"Or animals, or most of the time each other," Judy confirmed. "I for one am very glad that the Griffins that occupy most of Narnia are a lot friendlier than them, and also that your dragons here are more like our feathered friends."

"Yeah, most dragons can be territorial but pretty tolerant of people that are amiable to them," Hiccup said. "Of course, long histories of various cultures, ours included, killing dragons makes trust a little hard in some places."

"I can imagine."

Chatter died down for the most part afterward as they rode the air currents northward, save for Jake making an off-tail quip about Nick looking like a dog riding in a car with its head out the window, and the fox responding in kind about the rattler looking like he'd been turned into a stylish belt for Toothless. Their first stop was not part of their investigation proper, but important nonetheless. Below, the sturdy cliffs of the Meathead Isle rose up, silent sentinels regarding their approach with a stony visage.

The village that spread across the southern end of the island was fully alive with activity as it usually was, and at first there was barely any reaction at all to the series of dragons dropping in on them from the sky. But as soon as the first person recognized the Night Fury in the bunch, a wave of cheerful greetings rose up.

"It's the Hooligans!"

"Hey, Astrid, long time no see!"

"Still treatin' her well Hiccup?"

"How's ol' Stoick doing? And Valka?"

"Hey, someone fetch the chief!"

"Is that a rabbit?"

"Hey, there's a fox sittin' with Holly too!"

"Okay, okay, hello to you all too," Hiccup chuckled, dismounting from Toothless and holding hands out to the crowd. "One question at a time, and we don't have long to be here, so…oh, Mogadon, Thuggory, just the people we needed to see!"

"Hiccup, ma boy!" Mogadon greeted cheerily, walking up and grabbing the younger man in a bear hug that nearly matched Stoick's in its capacity to bend Hiccup's ribs. "It's been a couple o' months since ye stopped by fer a visit; Thuggory an' I were wonderin' what ye've been getting' up to!" He released Hiccup to finally allow him to breathe again, and glanced between him and his wife. "I see you and Astrid are still getting along, eh?"

"Yeah, -gasp- thanks Mogadon, we're still doing good," Hiccup wheezed, rubbing his sides; Myscale did nothing to protect from the pressure of Viking hugs. "I'm afraid what brings us here isn't all good news though. Maybe best for us to take a quick breather in the Hall first, perhaps?"

Mogadon nodded and turned to lead the visitors through the throng of villagers gathered to stare. "Alright people, quit yer gawking!" he snapped. "Clear out!" At the orders of the chief, the crowd parted, letting them pass through.

"So I notice a couple of new faces in the group," Thuggory drawled, glancing back at the pair of smaller mammals walking next to Holly and Astrid. "Hawken finally manage to turn those plushies of his into Descendants after all this time?"

"Nope, those two actually hail from Narnia," Toothless answered, also looking back. "But their history is otherwise rather similar to the movie; personality-wise they are the exact same characters."

"Ooh, finally got someone who might manage to keep up with Cami and her mouth then?"

"Who, Nick? Heh, you should have been there when they first met a couple of days ago. I thought the Bog girl was going to explode because he commented on her height, but then she just laughed off the quip and made like best friends. Can you believe that?"

"You're joking," Thuggory marveled, glancing back at the vulpine who waved at him when he noticed. "You survived calling Cami short; wow, what magical gift do you possess?"

"The gift of Nick, apparently," Judy quipped, lightly ribbing her friend in jest. "If I can't get someone to open up, he can talk just about anything out of anyone."

"Eh, what can I say?" Nick shrugged. "We foxes have always had silver tongues; I guess mix that with my star personality it just has to work on Vikings too."

"That head of yours gets any bigger you'll look like a hot air balloon."

The Meathead Hall was a grand arching structure made mostly of wood (though over the past few years renovated to incorporate Mysteel for structural integrity much like many of Berk's buildings), settled slightly to the north of central in the village and just south of the Meathead prison. Hiccup had always thought it odd when visiting, having grown up on an island with its hall and jail hewn straight from the caves of Berk. But it did, however, give the Meatheads more room for expression, and so the hall was as a result also covered in carvings and paintings galore across its surface, something that could never be done with Berk's Great Hall.

As they approached, Astrid noted Thuggory glancing around as if looking impatiently for someone. As he moved to push the doors open with his father, she ventured out, "So, you and Heather still seeing each other? I've heard you two have been spending a lot of time together; she living here yet?"

Thuggory paused as he looked inside the hall, before grinning and pushing the door open fully, gesturing past himself with a sweeping hand. "Well, why don't you ask her yourself?" he suggested.

Heather was standing inside the hall toward the back, Windshear next to her helping to balance a canvas on an easel. As they walked in, the two turned and stood up, Heather's face brightening like a lightbulb at the sight of her friends.

"Astrid! Hiccup!" she called, running to the former and the two meeting in a sisterly hug. "And Fishlegs, Embron, Jake…oh my, are these two who I think they are?" Her smile turned into a knowing grin as her eyes landed on the reynard and lagomorph amongst the group.

"Well, we come from Narnia, but otherwise pretty much, yeah," Judy answered, confirming in part what she assumed Heather was guessing at; did the Berkians have _any_ friends Hawken hadn't dragged over to see that film?

Heather nodded, before putting her hands to her hips and adopting a stern, expectant pose as she turned toward the teen in the group. "And I thought you still had like a week of school left, Holly. What are you doing out here?"

"Barely half a week at this point," Holly answered. "And since we never do anything important in the last few days, I managed to weasel out of it. Throwing the honorary officer and emergency card usually works for stuff like that."

Heather's hazel eyes narrowed further, but this time in concern rather than skepticism. "Emergency? What happened?"

"Remember Viggo and his Trapper's League or whatever they call themselves?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, hard to forget. We've been routing their ships and destroying traps every couple of months."

"Well, he got mad about us saving a fellow sentient race apparently, and so decided to forcibly acquire Tsefan as recompense."

"…WHAT?!" Heather exploded, her double axe swinging out on reflex. "He _stole_ Tsefan?! Next ship that comes our way I swear I am going to"-

"That's the problem," Toothless cut her off. "We do anything to Viggo's trade and he warned that he would take it out on my son. We can't actually do _anything_ until we find where that bastard's been keeping him."

"You're right, sorry about blowing up," Heather sighed, folding her axe and putting it away again. "Family's kind of an important thing to me, you know."

"No, no, it's a perfectly reasonable response believe me," Hiccup placated. "But in order to keep Tsefan safe, we're stuck on the defensive right now and looking for clues. Have you seen any ships pass this way in the past few days, perhaps disguised as fishing or trading vessels?"

"Afraid not," Mogadon answered, crossing his arms. "Other than Johann, but then he was on his way to you, so you would've seen him already too."

"We can make the promise though that we'll keep an eye out," Thuggory assured. "Silverwings and I are always out on patrol, and Heather will be heading back to the Peaceable Isle for a few days soon; we can cover ground that way and contact you if anything goes down." A curious look passed over his face. "Though, I gotta ask, for something this big, where's everyone else?"

"Split up," Phoenix answered. "Hawken and Hiccup and some of the others were interrogating Dagur before we came out here, hoping he might have some answers. We're here hoping Viggo's locked Tsefan away somewhere nearby, since he seems to do a lot of his business in the northern European waterways, but Dagur said that before we locked him and Alvin up, when they were working with Malin, that the lunatic was trading with the hunter. That means, unfortunately, Viggo might have any number of modern tech he's been playing with so his reach might be a lot further than we'd like to know."

"So Camicazi and Eret are with some of the gang heading south," Jake continued, "and Hawken has his party headin' east. Our worst case scenario, Tsefan might be in China by now."

Two emotions ran across Heather's face, mirrored by the Razorwhip next to her. "I feel for you, Toothless," she said, she and Windshear leaning forward to comfort the Night Fury, "and I pray that we find him nearer rather than further away. But, do you all really think you should be trusting what that backstabbing lowlife excuse for calling himself my brother tells you?"

"Look, we all know how you feel about him," Hiccup began, "but"-

"Well, we've got a sense, but we haven't exactly been here long enough to really know," Nick quipped, cutting him off and gesturing between himself and Judy.

Hiccup glared at the fox, before trying to continue, "-anyway, but it's becoming obvious that the guy is actually trying to change at least a little. Personally, I'm still taking what he says with a grain of salt, but among the things that makes me think he's actually being honest: everything that he told us would burn bridges between him and Viggo if the hunter ever finds out we talked with Dagur, so it's not benefitting him to talk if he intends to turn on us, Hawken didn't make note of him lying so either Dagur can hide every tell in existence from even dragon eyes or he isn't fibbing, and," he gestured to the fox nearby, "Nick's got a similar enough background to what we know of the movie version, and if anyone can pick up a tell better than a dragon, it might be a former con man –okay, fox in this case- and it was actually Nick who got Dagur to open up after the rest of us just did a great job of pissing him off."

Long story finished, Hiccup sucked in a huge breath as things turned quiet.

Heather harrumphed. "I'm still skeptical," she tutted. "And at the very least if I see Dagur again he still deserves a punch in the face, and I'll give it to him. But talking about that headache isn't going to help with the current situation any further I know; come on, since you guys stopped by and I doubt you can stay long, you should at least get some food to keep up your strength while traveling." She pointed to the far side of the hall. "Fish baskets are over there for the dragons and the rest of you predators if you want. Food line for the rest of us is over here."

She led the remainder of the gang (now smaller with the dragons, raptors, and Jake busy) to one side of the hall, where cooks were lining tables with various foods, and then paused at the first table when she saw the layout of the day: roasted fish, mutton, chicken, and a variety of baked breads.

"Oh," she mused, "this doesn't work for everyone here, does it? Hey Henli, we have any fruits or greens anywhere?"

Behind the table, a stout, curly-redheaded woman turned to regard the new arrivals with skepticism. "Got carrot tops from the carrots fer the stew tonight, but not much else, still early season. Why ye lookin' fer that?"

All eyes swung down to Judy, whose ears drooped in embarrassment. "You, uh, really don't have to pull anything special out for me," she said quietly. "Narnian animals are a little different; I can actually eat bread and stuff like that, even small bits of meat if I really had to."

"Well, we can scrounge up somethin' fer ye," Henli insisted, noting the newcomer as well behind the other side of the table. "'S not that much issue, not like the rest of us eat carrot tops anyway."

"Heh, Carrots getting her tops along with the short end of the stick," Nick laughed, ignoring his partner's glare as he filed in behind the others down the line, picking up various things along the way. "Don't worry, we'll find somewhere with more variety eventually I'm sure. Lucky for me I'm more flexible in what I can –oh, hello, what are _these_?" He picked up a little pastry at the end of the table, decorated with a dark brown crisscrossing frosting.

"Nick, no!" Holly exclaimed, reaching over to take away the dessert. Nick put on a face of mock horror and pulled it out of the girl's reach, dancing away to make sure she wouldn't just bowl him over instead.

"Madam, how dare you attempt to steal this precious gem from me!" he exclaimed, before grinning. "Come on now Holly, you can't keep all the sweets to yourself," he chided. "What's wrong with a fox having a little sugar with his lunch?"

"It's chocolate, you stupid furball! Canines can't eat chocolate!"

The fox quirked an eyebrow, before his muzzle split into a mischievous smirk and he popped the entire roll into his mouth, drawing a couple of gasps and several wide eyes as he chewed, making exaggerated satisfied groans before he swallowed, the whole time holding gaze with Holly.

Nearby, Judy groaned and face-palmed as she balanced the tray with her bread and newly acquired carrot greens with the other paw. "Oh for the love of…Nick, do you have to be like that? We're guests here."

"Do I? Probably not, but I felt like it," he chuckled, before turning to regard his new friends again. "Come on guys, you heard what Fluff said; us Narnian mammals are a little different from our ancestral counterparts. Lighten up a little, we've had chocolate for centuries, and I'm also partial to coffee if you guys have that around here."

"Even if they do here, no way I'm letting you have any after that little show," Holly snapped. "Can you explain that sort of thing next time _before_ the fact rather than make us think you're suicidal?"

"Aww, you do care."

"Or maybe I just want to make sure I'm the one that does you in."

"Alright, alright, let's skin the fox later," Astrid said. "Heather was right: I'm hungry, and I'd rather bash heads on a full stomach than an empty one. Just get your food and sit down."

Eventually, food in hand, they filed over to a nearby table and sat down (Holly putting her pack down on the bench so that Judy could sit down and still see over the table's edge), Jake coiling at one end of the table and the dragons sitting at the other or looking over their rider's shoulders, they having already finished their fish for the day. Silence reigned for several minutes as everyone ate; several glances were given to the newer duo to make sure they weren't being made uncomfortable by the rather diverse dining setting, or the nearby Vikings partaking in their meal (awkward as it may be eating with a dragon or other animals at times, eating with bulky people who tend to care only for rudimentary table manners at best is several levels more degrading), but they were more engrossed in trying to tease each other with their food than worrying about everyone else.

"So Heather," Hiccup finally spoke up, "anything new between you and Thuggory here?"

Heather looked up with surprise, before sighing and sharing a knowing smile with the Meathead heir. "Perhaps. Why, your impeccable skills at spotting relationship signs tell you something?"

"Well, besides the fact that you two have been spending more and more time on each other's islands the past few months, and keep sending each other goo-goo eyes every time you're visiting on Berk, I noticed this odd little silver band on your finger that wasn't there last time I saw you two."

"Finally popped the question, didja?" Jake smirked, looking sidelong at Thuggory who blushed in response. "'Bout time, took you two forever te get around to it."

"Well it's not like marriage is something you rush into Jake," Heather said. "Especially with how hectic _our_ lives are. And yeah, this is just a placeholder for the real thing, but he asked me just a week ago."

"Aw, and you didn't call us to let us know?" Astrid pouted, before her face turned into a real frown. "Although, with what's come up maybe it was better that you didn't."

"Yeah, we were going to bring it up as a surprise the next time we visited and give you all invites to the ceremony, but I'm now thinking we might hold off on wedding plans for until you guys manage to deal with Viggo," Thuggory said. "I know none of you would drop that just to visit us, so I, for one, vote not to risk any conflicts of interest. Kind of want the youngsters there too, you know?"

"I'll second my fiancé's opinion," Heather agreed. "So while we're betrothed, we're tabling the marriage date itself for later. Where're you all heading next? Viggo's got a wide reach we all know, and even just the Archipelago and Norwegian shores are a lot of ground to cover."

"There's a trading post between here and Freezing-to-Death that we thought we'd check out," Hiccup answered. "one of those bigger independent ports that we know Viggo's men probably pass through regularly, so we thought we'd head there to see if we can't pull up a decent lead. Chances are someone's dealt with the Coalition recently."

"Yeah, that place," Thuggory mused in agreement. "Talk to Armani at the pub; he may make you buy something for his troubles, but he somehow manages to catch every lick of gossip that goes through the place. Heck, he probably knows more of Johann's stories than Johann himself remembers; if anyone can point you in the right direction, or at least tell you who to corner, it'd be him."

"And I'm sure you guys have already thought about it, but just in case: keep close tabs on these two when you go into the ports, especially if you split up," Heather warned, gesturing to Nick and Judy. "Lord knows how long it took our four main tribes to swear off the unclean 'foods' when Hawken showed up and dropped the biblical bombshells in our lives, but the rest of the north is still partial to rabbit stews and fox pelt scarves. I don't want to have to come out and help Astrid torture someone because they took a cheap shot at our new friends here."

She looked with tempered concern at the Narnian duo, but the pair only scoffed.

"Heh, I'd like to see someone get the drop on us," Nick quipped. "Judy'll lay then out flat before they even take two steps."

* * *

Twilight was already settling in when they approached the trading post. Docks and marinas abounded along the rocky beach that covered the southeastern coast, spreading out from a small development consisting of a handful of inns, small caretaker's houses, the trade stores and warehouses where goods were stored in between travels, and of course the Public House tavern. Beyond the settlement, the rest of the small island was cloaked in forest and low hills, untouched due to the lack of need or want to develop further.

The last mentioned building took up most of the north-central portion of the settlement, sloping tar-wood roofs overhanging ancient log-cabin style walls. The front doors were held wide open for the visitors constantly flowing in and out at a steady trickle, and the smells of roasting meats and cheap mead and beer wafted out into the air through the same doors.

The dragons sailed in unnoticed and landed in the forests to the north of the pub, their passengers disembarking and gathering amongst the trees.

"We don't want to attract a bunch of unwanted attention now, so Astrid, Fishlegs, Holly, and I will head inside to find Armani and haggle out some info," Hiccup said quietly. "The rest of you, stay out here and keep an eye out in the area for suspicious activity; try not to interrupt anything though unless you're certain it's the Coalition and pertains to Tsefan. We do _not_ want to cause a scene that could ostracize Berk from trading here and we don't want to risk Tsefan's well-being."

"So in other words, we're stuck with the boring position," Nick groused, leaning against a tree and crossing his arms.

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow. "Would you rather people freak out over thinking you're trying to steal stuff from them, wild animal they'll probably think you are, or kill you when you ty and ask some simple questions? This isn't Berk, where the whole population is familiar with talking animals. Besides, I know foxes have good night vision; you'll be of more help to us all out here anyway."

"Okay, but what about me?" Judy asked. "I kind of side with Nick here; we came to look for clues and I don't have good night vision. Not to mention, don't we have these for a reason? We'll be fine." She pointed to the hidden stone on the side of her suit.

"We've learned it's wise to start of slow, guys," Holly placated. "And those barriers have limits. I won't let you be left out later, when we're not dealing with a big trading port full of suspicious and superstitious Vikings, but right now it's in our best interest to keep quiet while we can. The less Viggo knows about us moving around, the better. Just…help us out this time, okay?" At their still unconvinced looks, she added, "Maybe I can find some info about your case, or maybe some trinket or food of interest to bring back out for your troubles."

::Oh sure, the mammals get incentives to stay out,:: Toothless grumbled.

"You get spoiled back home all the time, Toothless," Hiccup admonished. "And you like sticking your nose where it definitely doesn't belong when we go places like this."

"Wait, what'd he say?" Nick inquired, looking between them with confusion.

"Nothing, just complaining over petty things," Hiccup answered. "Alright, stay alert and we'll be back in a few minutes hopefully."

The four humans turned and headed out of the forest, leaving the rest looking on behind them.

"Alright, so how do we play this out?" Holly asked. "We don't exactly look local at the moment."

"It is a trade port," Hiccup deadpanned. "There isn't anyone 'local.' Just act casual, we'll grab whatever open seats are available, and ask for Armani. Hopefully he'll be able and willing to give us some sort of heads-up on what the Coalition's been up to recently."

They joined the thin crowd flowing into the open doors of the tavern, stepping to the side once inside to escape into the more open space along the edges of the building. One small table with six chairs huddled around it remained empty, and the quartet rapidly claimed it, leaning back in their seats as far as they dared to look relaxed even with as rickety as some of the supports appeared. Seconds later, a surprisingly cheerful looking barmaid appeared by the table.

"New faces in the pub!' she exclaimed, looking them over. "Nice o' ye to drop by, an' interesting outfits; ye all happen te be traders from Berk perhaps?"

They all went stiff for a moment, fearing they'd be rooted out before they wanted to, before Hiccup broke the tension as he realized how little simply being seen in a port tavern would actually mean. "Yeah, something like that," he said.

The barmaid nodded. "Well, nice te meetcha; name's Gudrun. Y'all havin' anythin' te eat or drink while yer here?"

"Round of tea if you have it, and, should we say roast chicken guys?" Hiccup asked, looking at his companions. "I know you don't like fish too much Holly, so…"

"Yeah, that's fine," Holly agreed.

Gudrun nodded. "Alright then. Need anything else 'fore I go put that on in back?"

"Yeah, actually one other thing," Astrid affirmed. "You know of anyone working here by the name of Armani? We need to talk to him."

Gudrun's eyes fell a little, and she shrugged. "Yeah, I know 'im. Kind of picky about who he sits down with though I warn ya. Got a reason I can pass on?"

"Mogadon and Thuggory of the Meatheads send their regards. It's urgent."

"Well alright hon, I'll see if I can find 'im."

As she walked away, a half-slurred chuckle sounded from nearby. Astrid and Holly turned to see a trio of men sitting at the table to the side of them.

"Aye, he's nae always easy te pin down," one chuckled, leaning closer and letting his ragged brown hair hang in his face. "Bu' he's nae the only one who knows things goin' on. We all talk together."

He and one of his buddies stood up, staggering slightly and leaning on their chairs as they walked over. At the overpowering odor of alcohol pouring off them, Holly involuntarily leaned away, wrinkling her nose.

"You pretty bodies could get what yer lookin' fer from pretty much anyone here, if ye were willin' te exchange a little something in return," the man spoke again, reaching over and running a finger along the teen's cheek with clear intent. Holly quickly slapped him away.

"Touch me again and you'll have a hard time walking away," she snapped. "We're not here to entertain a bunch of drunk pigs."

"Aww, come on, don't be like that," the drunk Viking pressed on anyway, his inebriation clouding judgement and making him oblivious to the red flags rising everywhere. He leaned in closer. "I'll pay you even, what you say?"

A second later he froze, and his two friends behind him stopped their advances as Holly now leaned back in close to him, avoiding breathing in the man's drunken scent even as she locked gazes with him. In her hand, a gleaming Mysteel karambit was held curved upward along the man's throat, just close enough that it was cutting hairs and breaking the first layer of skin, and her eyes were flashing green in fury.

"I'll say it again," she growled, every ounce of venom possible in her words, "we are _not here for you PIGS!_ I'm not quite sure if you should count yourself lucky or worse off that my brother isn't here with us; he might keep me from killing you, but there are worse fates too. Want to find out what they are?"

Something had clearly gotten through his thick skull, as the man held up his hands pleadingly, eyes wide. "N-no…no harm done here! I-I'll just turn around an' leave, okay?" he squeaked.

Holly raised an eyebrow, and glanced to the side, pursing her lips. "Gee, I don't know," she mused. "You were making a suggestion not just about me, but the married woman over there to, so…Astrid?"

He didn't even have the time to process Holly's words, let alone move, to avoid the boot that came up in a blur and slammed between his legs with the force of a sledgehammer. With a pained, squealing "Ooof!" he dropped to the floor, curling up in a fetal position with his hands clasped at his groin, before Astrid spun and kicked him again, this time right in his side and sending him bowling into his two friends, leaving them all wiped out on the floor and groaning.

"Next time, it won't be a blunt object, and we'll both do the honors, understood?" the Viking woman snapped, before casually leaning back into her seat and sharing a calm high five with Holly, watching as the trio slowly and mostly unsuccessfully staggered to their feet, the two that had hung back supporting their more wounded comrade as they beat the hastiest retreat they could in their condition.

"Well, I was skeptical about giving you my time, but after that show you have my attention fully," laughed a new voice, bringing the table of riders to glance back toward the main portion of the tavern, where a grinning man sporting a leathery outfit and messy dirty blond hair and mustache was sauntering their way.

"Armani Graelin, pleasure to make your acquaintance," he said, spinning another seat at the table around and dropping into it as he extended his hand in greeting for the others to take as Gudrun returned with what they'd all ordered. "And who is it that I might be addressing today, oh friends of the Meathead Chief and Heir?"

"Hiccup Haddock of Berk," Hiccup introduced, shaking the man's hand before grabbing his mug of tea. "This is my wife Astrid, and our friends Fishlegs and Holly."

"Well, I never," Armani chuckled deeply. "Not often we get real legends in here; your name's spread around quite rapidly Mr. Haddock, the same with your companions. Now tell me, what adventure brings the famed Dragon Riders of Berk out here, and dare I ask where the morpher is?"

"Hawken is out elsewhere trying to find answers," Astrid replied, tipping a chicken leg at him. "As for your other question, being at the trading outpost here I assume you're at least moderately familiar with the Grimborn brothers and their Trapper's Coalition?"

"Mmm, those names might be familiar, but they're also dangerous. Not sure I can risk talking about them without something decent in return for my troubles. Not that I'd dare ask of something like those rockheads earlier, mind you, so rest assurred."

"So we were told. What might you look for?"

The trader leaned back and stroked his mustache in thought. "Well, most beneficial to me would be something you can give me that no one else can. Somehow though, I doubt you'll be parting with a weapon such as that beauty I glimpsed earlier for information"-

"If we did, it might be parting from us at high speed," Holly said nonchalantly, though her grip tightened around the pouch her karambit had been put back into.

"-right," Armani deadpanned, albeit with a hint of concern for his wellbeing added in as he looked cautiously at the teen. "But what about, perhaps, a set of Night Fury scales? The only ones in existence live with you all; is yours perhaps with you Hiccup?"

"He is, but not likely that you'll see him," Hiccup responded guardedly, before reaching into a pocket on his leg. "You're lucky then that we do have an excess of these at the moment," he continued, putting three of the black, iridescent scales on the table between himself and the trader, " because we use them as well."

"Yes, in your suits or so I've heard," Armani toned, reaching out to grab the scales. Before he could, a hand grasping his arm gave him pause.

"Just remember, if we let you have these, anything and everything you tell us had better be truthful, preferably useful," Astrid warned, gripping Armani's writ tightly. "None of us can afford or are willing to play games, and retaliation against you won't be much to slow us down in the long run."

"No hard feelings though, just business," Fishlegs echoed.

Armani swallowed as Astrid released him, far more gingerly reaching out then and scooping up the scales to pocket them. "Ships come through here all the time, from every corner of the Archipelago," he said quietly, "and people develop looser lips when they've downed a mug of ale or two recently. The Coalition does a lot around here and to the east, trades in dragons of course but also exotic skins and furs, spices and herbs, weapon trades, or just about anything they can get their hands on that commands decent enough price to make a real profit. What in particular are you trying to pin down?"

"Someone working for Viggo captured a member of my family," Hiccup answered darkly. "We're trying to figure out where they might have taken him."

"Wait, they're kidnapping people now?" Armani exclaimed. "I know the trafficking business was still active in some parts of Africa and Eastern Europe, but"-

"We consider dragons to be members of the family, Armani," Hiccup deadpanned, cutting him off. "I wouldn't put it past Viggo to sell someone as a slave, but no, he kidnapped my dragon's son, a Night Fury."

The trader spent a couple of moments processing this, before something at least resembling understanding spread across his face. "Ah, so that's where this goes; you know that Viggo trades in dragons, so he has the equipment"-

"And he sent us a message using another one of our own dragons to claim he did it," Astrid added.

"-and he's confident enough to throw it in your faces," Armani amended. "He's got holdouts all over the north, so you don't know where to start looking, and if you just start destroying his bases –I know that at least your other friend is capable of such on his own- he may take it out on the dragon and move him in a never ending cat-and-mouse game. Alright, here's where I'll start: Viggo's the mastermind; find where he holds out most often and you'll probably be able to dig up his notes and orders. There is no means I can think of for even such a man to avoid keeping some sort of record for his dealings."

His face fell now. "The only problem is, I haven't run by anyone who actually knows the answer to where Viggo bases from. The men working for the Grimborns might know, but a lot of them won't spill such information easily, not even when inebriated. You interfere with them too, and it'll get back to Viggo within days at the most, and he'll retaliate as he sees fit, make of that what you will.

"But, I do know, there's been a trade running up the coast of the Mainland for some time now that everyone's been all hush-hush about; men have been basing somewhere in the far south of the Archipelago getting shipments from the Mediterranean and Africa before sending it north past here or east somewhere. Viggo's been preparing something we know, so maybe it was for holding you off. If you can find the men involved, I'd wager you follow that trade line and you might find your…"

A sudden increase of shouting from somewhere outside made Armani trail off, his curiosity piqued.

"Hold on, is that who I think it was?" Holly piped up, eyes widening as one shout in particular echoed through whatever scuffle had been set off. Within seconds all of the riders at the table were on their feet, and another second later they were racing out the door after a cannon-like gunshot rattled the tavern.

* * *

"This is sooo boring; can't we at least grab a beer from the tavern while we're wandering around back here?"

"I'm going to at least agree with Hiccup in saying we don't need the chaos a talking fox would create walking in there," Judy quipped back, elbowing Nick, "much less a drunk one coming out. And since when do you drink?"

"Hey, never had a taste of Viking drinks, just heard they're strong. And I don't, but a little every now and then doesn't hurt either."

"Yeah, well, the last thing we need is a tipsy, sarcastic brush-tail who might not be able to think straight enough then to sweet-talk his way out of trouble if he gets drunk enough to stick his nose where it shouldn't fit."

"Ouch, you wound me Carrots."

Nick's look morphed into a satisfied smirk soon enough however. "Must be hanging around me a little too much though; you've gotten quicker on your comebacks."

"Because with you it's necessary for survival, or at least my mental health."

As the others had fanned out around the edges of the settlement, watching for skeptical activity elsewhere, Nick and Judy had stayed stationed near the public house, the two of them knowing that if there was going to be anyone of interest passing by, they'd probably stop here eventually, and possibly avoid the indoors due to the riders being inside. That, and they were still drawn by wanting to participate with Hiccup and company despite the denial of such earlier.

A noise from the tavern made both their heads whip around, two pairs of sensitive ears picking up the sound of the back door of the tavern swinging open as three men slipped out. Nick gestured for Judy to drop low, doing the same himself as he stepped forward on all fours.

"Hang back Carrots, I'm gonna go eavesdrop. Be ready if something goes wrong."

"I'm the smaller one though, and with better ears."

"Who can see in the dark and is actually designed for stealth?"

The rabbit groaned. "Fine, but I'm going to be right behind you."

Nick shrugged in acquiescence as he slunk forward, darting across the open dirt and grass space before sidling up against the back wall of the tavern. The men who had exited had traveled further along the side, congregating at the far corner, and as they whispered to each other the fox crept up behind a discarded crate and angled the tips of his ears up over the top, keeping almost entirely out of sight in the dark and listening in on the conversers.

"…didn't expect them te start showing up this soon," the shortest one, sporting messy black hair under his helmet, groused to the straight-haired redhead and frizzed blond standing with him. "There's four of them in there, which means their dragons are probably watching nearby! If they find our ship"-

"That's why ye need te keep yer voice down," the redhead snapped back in a gravelly voice. "S'not like we've got anythin' incriminatin' on our ship; the trade map would nae tell 'em anythin', but better safe than sorry. And you heard what Ryker said: they mess with us, the little bastard gets it, so we're off free even then."

"Yeah, but what if they find the other trade?" the short one continued ( _He looks a bit like Snotlout,_ Nick mused offhand). "We can't afford to be slowed own at all; Viggo's wantin' that next shipment in a couple o' days and we still have te make that transfer down south beforehand. Hey, where's Frelsari? We need te grab our supplies and head out."

 _Well, cross off the concern that nobody here knows anything,_ Nick thought dryly. _They've heard about Tsefan, and they know we're out looking. If I can follow them back to their ship, maybe I can sneak around and scrounge up that map that they…hey what?_

That's when it fell apart. The fox barely managed to register the steps coming up behind him and turned to hide himself further away when the rope whipped down and cinched tight on his snout. Another loop came down and slid around his neck, effectively muzzling and near suffocating him, and memories of his past suddenly flooded into Nick's mind.

He had a muzzle on, improvised as it was. He had a muzzle. Like a light switch being turned on, the fox dropped into a panic, reaching up to scrape off the ropes with his claws and thrashing across the ground as a dark laugh echoed from his captor.

"Look at this guys, someone dressed up a chicken thief!" the man chuckled, dragging Nick out so that the other three could see him. "One less fox te raid the coops, and maybe we can have a nice fur out o' it all too, what you"-

"NICK!"

The yell came out of the dark, and Nick's captor turned just in time to see a grey blur launch itself through the air, a pair of large feet slamming into his chest and knocking him down. Groaning and rolling to his feet, the man held out the ropes in his hand to the blond, who took them and continued restraining the fox as the newer arrival turned to face…an angry looking rabbit in an odd outfit matching Nick's glaring up at him.

Judy moved to slam a kick into the man's chest again, but this time he whipped out a knife as he ducked to the side, preparing to gut her. A slight reddish flash appeared and the knife deflected before it even reached the rabbit however, falling out of his hand, but that man reacted quickly, turning his hand as fur rubbed against it and clamping down, jarring Judy mid-leap and holding her up by the arm.

"I don't know what the hell these two are," he growled," but now we've got some new furs and stock for a rabbit stew, what you think?"

"Uh, Frelsari, you think they're wearing clothes for a reason?" the blond asked, yanking on the ropes and choking Nick. "I don't think"-

"Yer not paid te think here," Frelsari snapped. "They're animals, and better not to risk it anyway if they're odd ones and heard anything." He pinned Judy' legs as she struggled to break loose, and glared at her in disgust for a moment before it morphed into a twisted delight. "Besides, I know for a fact that rabbit stew is"-

BANG!

All four men screamed in an un-manly unanimous chorus, ducking as what sounded like a cannon went off not ten feet away, and all eyes swiveled immediately toward the trees as the cause showed itself.

"Drop the rabbit and the fox and put yer hands up now, 'less ye want one of those bullets going through your stomachs!" Jake roared, fiery eyes towering above the men as his Gatling tail buzzed away angrily.

Frelsari now finally made the connection, immediately and unceremoniously dropping Judy as he put his hands up in surrender. Judy yelped as she hit dirt, luckily the impact dampened by her barrier, before growling and spinning around to land a swift kick to Frelsari's shin that had him howling and dropping to the ground in pain. Then she scrambled over to Nick, loosening and pulling off the ropes before pulling him into a hug.

"I'm so sorry Nick," she cried. "I wasn't fast enough to"-

A trembling paw on her shoulder cut her off as Nick sucked in a breath and looked at her. "It's fine; you didn't do anything wrong," he placated quietly, struggling to keep the tremble out of his voice as well as he sent her a shaky smile, before trying to reassure, "I'm okay, just took me back, wasn't ready for that."

Judy nodded, but she could still hear his shaking voice; someone was going to pay for that yet.

"Sorry for the loud noise you two," Jake said gruffly, before his glare swung back to the quartet of would-be murderers. With a hiss, he threw his body forward, hundreds of pounds of snake slamming them into the tavern wall with a crash that shook the dust off the building and flattening them with a coil just as Hiccup and the others came barreling around the corner.

"What the heck just happened?!" Hiccup exclaimed, hand on his sword's hilt.

"These fools were plannin' on making our new friends into impromptu fur coats," Jake replied, leaning close to the men and cracking open one side of his mouth, revealing one of his foot-long fangs for them to see. "I think I'm of the mind te drag 'em all to hell for it."

"Okay, back off the Grim Reaper visage for a moment will you Jake?" Astrid ordered (though she could see the glint in his eyes telling her he was saying it mostly to scare the men), stepping up next to the rattler and looking down at Nick and Judy. "You two okay?"

"Fine now, I think," Judy said curtly, before tapping at the spot where the barrier gem was hidden. "I thought these things blocked attacks though! How'd he grab me?"

"They stop injurious attacks and slow down blows, and only if they come from outside of a range of about a foot," Fishlegs answered, "but close in or against something slow-moving they don't do much, so you have to still be able to defend yourself in close quarters as well."

"Oh yeah, good to know now."

"Well, for future reference, don't rely fully on any one protection."

"Unlike me as it is to say this," Nick piped up, now standing and angrily kicking away the ropes as he focused on Frelsari with a glare, "we should focus. We're already drawing a crowd and –hey Toothless, Phoenix, nice of you to join us," he greeted as the others, attracted by the commotion, showed up, "-anyway, these guys work for Viggo, I overheard that much. And they know about Tsefan."

"Great! We've got a bargaining chip too," Holly grinned, walking with Astrid up to stand just in front of Frelsari and his companions. "You guys were preparing the murder of part of our gang; we can pretend to ignore the involvement of anything else and say that in response, you have two choices to pay back: your own deaths, eye for an eye sort of thing which I'm kind of partial for after the evening I've had tonight, or you can tell us what you know about the Night Fury your boss kidnapped."

Frelsari responded by spitting in Holly's face. She froze, staring stonily at the man for a moment before closing her eyes in a tight, closed-mouth grimace, and her scowl deepened dangerously. One hand reached up and wiped off the spittle and her eyes snapped open in a venomous glare, both of them turning a green that Frelsari was certain they were not a moment before and promising a thousand horrible futures.

Frelsari only just began to notice the wincing, pitying looks he was being given by everyone else in the gang at that moment. Too late though, he braced himself (unable to bring up his arms thanks to the rattlesnake still flattening him and his companions) as a Myscale-gloved fist connected hard with his jaw, stars exploding in his vision and a couple of teeth rattled somewhere in his mouth. His head snapped to the side with the force and he weathered the pain for several seconds before his vision cleared enough to see the brunette lean close in front of him, fake saccharine smile spreading across her face as she held up a knife to his throat.

"Imagine if I were to use this along with that blow," Holly threatened, her tone telling the man she wasn't joking, much. "I'll ask again: what do you know?"

Silence.

Holly sighed; she really didn't want to resort to anything harsher even if her words suggested otherwise; she wouldn't actually kill them, though they didn't know that, but pain and humiliation? That was still well within range. Her hand lowered to her belt, slowly drawing out another thin, gleaming blade.

"We don't know anything!" the blond man blurted, seeing not only Holly's blade but the axe that Astrid was reaching for and the dart gun style weapon that had appeared in Nick's paw. "We just overheard Darian when we last saw him!"

"Who's Darian then?" Hiccup asked, crossing his arms.

"Shut yer mouth already Aanderson!" Frelsari snapped, before wheezing both from a shot of pain running through his jaw (Holly might have given him a hairline fracture) and Jake increasing pressure against his chest.

Aanderson ignored him, preferring to keep all of his limbs intact over an angry Viggo apparently. "He's one of the lead hunters," he explained timidly. "Viggo doesn't even talk to us; he sends others to direct things when Ryker's not out here. Darian was stocking up for a hunt; he made a mention of Berk, that's all!"

"I heard you mention talking to Ryker himself," Nick snapped, "and some sort of trade south of here. You want to dance around the truth, do it with someone who wasn't once an expert at that game himself; I know when the fact's aren't adding up." The fox stepped forward, nose twitching. "You're hiding something too, and I'm not talking about just what you know; I smell something draconic about all of you."

"You're just smelling one of your dragons then," the black-haired man claimed.

"Nah, I can pick them out easy enough," Nick countered. "You smell different. So, what'd Ryker tell you? And what are you trading?"

The black-hair scowled. "Great going Aanderson," he snipped. "If they don't kill us then Ryker _will_."

"Shut up Lanser," Aanderson snapped back. "At least we might be able to explain it to Ryker without being burnt to a crisp!"

"Hey, enough chit-chat!' Judy ordered, foot thumping. "You were eavesdropping on your boss then?"

"We don't get told why things are happening otherwise," Aanderson admitted quietly. "That is all we know about that dragon! And we're trappers and traders, of course we smell like other dragons! We don't always know what we have, we're just supposed to move the merchandise from A to B, okay?" He looked at them pleadingly, eyes flickering warily to his cohorts in between.

"Alright everyone, what did I miss?"

They looked up to see Embron glide in. "I found a trapper's ship out in the marina, and…" he paused, taking in the sight before him: a somewhat haggard and ticked off looking fox and rabbit pair, Holly and Astrid both with unsheathed weapons in their hands, and everyone glaring daggers at a group of men that Jake was busy turning into pancakes against the side of the tavern. "Hmm. I think I might venture the guess that these might be the crew of that particular ship."

"You'd probably venture correctly," Nick answered. "Great to hear you located their vessel, as while they've been quite compliant the last two minutes here in spilling info after Holly made to skewer that fat one there, they're not giving us the whole picture still."

"How do you figure that?" Jake asked. "I mean, I'd guess the same thing, but what's tippin' ye off, other than them being lying dragon hunters in the first place?"

"Well, what with my background I've always been good at reading people," Nick drawled, gesturing at the men, "but tonight it's like looking at a picture book. Redhead and Frelsari here aren't going to actually talk unless we physically hurt them, which by all means if you feel like doing so go ahead, so they're the seniors I gather and more integrated into the system. Blondie and blackbeard there are just here for the money, so they've been singing for us so far but they're not privileged with the info."

"Alright Jake; tie them up and bring them with us," Hiccup ordered, before looking back to Embron. "Lead the way to their ship if you will, and we'll see what we can scrounge up."

"You can't take anything without Viggo hearing about it!" Frelsari snapped, wincing from the pain in his jaw again.

Hiccup stopped, and turned around to march up to the man as he was scooped up with the others into a thick rattlesnake coil. "We're taking eye for an eye as Holly suggested on your attempt at our friends' lives," he said lowly. "And you're right, we can't take anything otherwise, but we don't have to. Nick and I can read how you react to whatever we find, and we've got a decent writer and cartographer to take notes of things that we might find helpful. We're surrounded by dragons, all of whom have great sense of smell, as well as the fox, so anything you're hiding can be rooted out in just a few minutes. You don't have any secrets that you can keep. Embron, show us the way; Astrid, if you could run back into the tavern and pay them for their troubles, maybe grab the food so we can take it with us too, that would be wonderful."

The moment they stepped (or slithered) into the torchlight of the settlement, what little conversation that hadn't already been disturbed by the events behind the tavern died off as everyone took in the sight. Dragons had become common enough not to be unusual, but the other creatures that walked with them grabbed looks left and right.

"Make a sketch, it'll last longer," Jake quipped at one particularly open-mouthed look, "and close yer mouth before ye find a bird's nest in there." The gawker in question quickly closed said gape and made himself scarce.

"So much for keeping a low profile," Judy snarked.

"Yeah, things happen," Hiccup sighed. "Word would get out eventually though."

The docks were well kept up and fairly active until they arrived, and ships by the dozens were moored along the wooden boardwalks. Embron led them down to a large, but otherwise unremarkable, vessel docked near the end of one such path, its sails marked by the emblem of the Coalition, and the Nightmare alighted ominously on the beams holding up said sails, looking down at the others. Frelsari and his friends gulped at the shadowy sight.

"I'll hold them here while you look," Jake decided, coiling up on the dock with the trappers held firmly facing their ship to watch. Nick gave the snake a mock salute as he walked by, which Jake ignored, before traveling up the gangplank and onto the deck with the others.

"Well, doesn't look that different from the ships we have in Narnia," he observed.

"When it works, no need to elaborate the design," Astrid noted back, heading immediately toward the doors to the lower decks with Thorn following her close behind. "Come on, if we're going to find anything it'll be in the cargo holds or the galley." She pulled the doors open and headed down the steps.

Below, Nick was unbothered by the near-absence of light, same with Toothless and the raptors, but Holly and Hiccup quickly pulled out flashlights from their belts and switched them on, illuminating the hall of the first deck. The group quickly shuffled down the corridor, Quicksilver and Phoenix splitting off to investigate the cages and rooms off to the side.

"Watch out for traps; these guys tend to lay those about," Hiccup warned.

"We'll be fine," Phoenix responded, before disappearing through a doorway.

Another set of stairs led down to the bottom level of the ship, which Holly and Nara dropped into, followed by Judy at Nick's suggestion, while he, Astrid, Hiccup, and Fishlegs continued forward to the galley room with their dragons behind them. Pushing open the doors, Astrid grimaced.

"Ugh, I guess I should have expected this; what a mess."

Indeed, the room was a disaster zone: other than the large, practically pristine Archipelago map on the back wall, everything else was chaotic. Scrolls, books, and notes were haphazardly lying around, objects of varying origin and value lying mixed into the clutter: a spyglass sat in one corner, a coil of rope lay tangled on top of a large tome, and curiously, a set of opal beads lay on the edge of the one large desk in the room, glinting in what little light made it through the window on the wall.

"I bet Judy would love a necklace for special occasions," Nick commented, eyeing the beads.

"Don't even think about it, reynard," Astrid warned.

The fox put on a faux-innocent expression and held up his paws. "What? I'm not going to steal these; that would go against my standing as an officer. Just thought maybe I should look for something similar later on." The wide eyes narrowed into a smirk a moment later. "On the other hand, they're probably thieves too, and they did plan on skinning us…"

"No, Nick."

"Aw, come on!"

"Would you two cut it out and look for clues already?" Hiccup snapped. 'There's got to be something down here." He turned to dig through a pile of papers, reading them over as Fishlegs combed the books on the nearby shelf (and the floor below it, where many had been tossed instead). Astrid and Nick followed suit on the opposite side of the room, though Nick's attention quickly diverted to the big map. He'd never seen the layout of the world beyond the Narnian mainland, so it was a learning curve for him, and he immediately spotted Berk (marked with an amusingly massive X through it) and other similarly crossed out isles scattered through the Archipelago that he assumed were allies with similar views, like the Meatheads.

 _This must be that trade map I'll bet,_ he mused, tracing the edges of the Archipelago and Mainland. Under his finger, intersecting at stops like the island they were on, were dotted lines that must have marked out said trade routes.

Most of this was not particularly unusual, but the fox did become intrigued by the small tacks pushed into the canvas in several places. Several lined the mainland coast, two large clusters surrounding the far northern Isles, and one particular tack, with a star-shaped head very divergent from the appearance of the rest, sat square in the middle of a small island far to the south of the main archipelago, halfway between and somewhat to the west of the islands and the British Isles (or, as they still were in Hiccup's world, the realm of the Celts).

"Hey guys, any familiarity with this place?" Nick called over his shoulder, pointing at the odd tack on the map. Fishlegs shuffled over first, bending down and scrutinizing the location as he pulled out a map of his own from a belt pouch.

"Hmm, not one of the islands I'm familiar with," he mused, eyes turning away as he unfolded the paper in his hands. "Could be a trade point with the Celts, or maybe a fort built off the main routes to keep things away from nosy people like us. But…hold on a minute."

Frantic flicking of eyes between the main canvas and Fishlegs' little map followed for several seconds, and Nick leaned away apprehensively, ears falling back at the almost panicky look the Viking was beginning to adopt.

"There's something wrong here!" Fishlegs exclaimed, garnering the full attention of the other two Vikings in the room. "They've got an island marked out here that doesn't exist! I-I've studied every chart available, and none have anything out there, so why do they have-?"

"Whoa, whoa, take a breath Fishlegs," Hiccup admonished, grabbing the larger man by the shoulders. "A discrepancy on a map is not a life-and-death situation, okay? It's not like we've got satellite technology around here to map the planet; people make mistakes."

"That doesn't explain why they then have this one place so plainly marked out when no one else does," Fishlegs argued back, waving a frantic hand (and narrowly missing bopping Nick on the snout in the process). "We know hunters are practical people; they won't go chasing imaginary things without base."

"Then this island probably does exist," Astrid said, "and common maps just miss it. If no one goes out there, no one would map it after all, kind of like how most Mainland maps are never going to have Narnia or anything beyond it."

"But why wouldn't there ever be explorers? People looking for resources or trade routes? It's not that far away from the Celtic Isles or the Mainland."

"Fear," Nick answered.

Three sets of eyes looked to him for an explanation, and he put up a paw in front of his face, curling his fingers as if about to examine his claws in nonchalance. "Well, think about it; could be there's something out there and traders first encountering the place were scared off, and so spread word following that there was nothing there in order to keep people from investigating and therefore possibly dying –a lot of your monster stories stem from a gobbledygook mess like that. And, if it's a dragon or dragon-related, the trappers are going to try and look for it instead. Or, if the trappers have a fort there, and are keeping things hidden from view, they're going to possibly try scaring or bribing people into acting like it's just open ocean."

"A ruse to keep people at a distance," Fishlegs commented softly. "Hiccup, if that's the case, where could possibly be a better place to keep a Night Fury than an island where no one but the trappers ever go?"

"And it's not in a direction we would normally ever look," Hiccup agreed, a smile forming as hope returned and he glanced to the door of the room where the dragons were looking in with expectant expressions; Toothless in particular looking excited at the new prospect. "Maybe that's what you picked up on, what they were failing to tell us Nick; these guys might know already where Viggo took Tsefan! Fishlegs, jot down those tagged locations really quick so we can refer to them later. Then come on, let's find the others; we've got our next heading."

"Hey, you absolutely sure they'll miss those beads there?" Nick asked cheekily as they started to file out of the room.

"No, Nick!"

As they emerged into the hallway, Hiccup called out, "Found something! Holly, Quicksilver, you copy?"

"Coming up!" Holly answered, she and Judy soon popping up through the bottom hatch where they'd disappeared with Nara in tow.

"Nothing down there," Judy said, "only what looks like firewood and some really, really old dragonskin leather."

"Zippleback too," Holly confirmed, fists tightening. "It's nothing we could get mad at them about now, but it still doesn't make me happy. Good thing the twins aren't here or they'd flip."

"Not much this way either," Phoenix answered as well, she and Quicksilver popping out of an adjacent room. "Empty storage rooms and cages, a bit of food stored away but nothing else. What'd you all find?"

"Eh, just a map with possible hideouts and in particular an island that shouldn't exist," Nick answered nonchalantly, dropping an arm to rest on Judy's head much to her dismay. "And it was marked out by the hunters very specially, so it might be where they're holding Tsefan, in the opposite direction that we all headed. Oof!"

He winced as Judy elbowed him, her none too happy about being used as an armrest, and he dropped his arm at her indignant glare.

"Finally, a possible answer," Holly exclaimed, turning on her heels and shuffling back toward the main stairwell, bounding up it to the deck. "Embron! We found a lead!"

"Really?"

"Yep! Jake, you can drop the sorry good-for-nothings; wouldn't want to hold them up too much longer, am I right?"

As the others caught up to the teen, they snickered at Jake's unceremonious flipping of the hunters across the ship's deck, before he shrank down to fit onto Hiccup's arm again. Without hesitation, the group piled onto their dragons, taking off and leaving the ship below to flounder in their wake, but as soon as he was sure they were out of earshot, Hiccup turned to address the others again.

"So, the island's a bit of a ways to the southwest, so we're not going to try and get there tonight," he explained. "From here it's probably a two day flight, so we're going to rest up now and head out in the morning. Don't worry Toothless, not much they can do with Tsefan without any warning, especially if those guys below can't beat us there."

"We can probably set up camp for the night on the far side of the island for tonight," Embron suggested. "It's got some heavy forest for cover and we can raise the tents in the clearings there."

"Good idea," Hiccup agreed. "Alright everyone, get your rest tonight, and make sure to sleep well; it's going to be a long flight tomorrow."

* * *

As the dragons vanished from view into the night sky, Lanser turned to look at Frelsari with a scowl. "We gave away too much already I think," he grumbled, landing a punch to Aanderson's gut as he spoke, "but sounds like they found the map. What'll you think they'll do once they figure it out?"

Frelsari chuckled, if hesitantly as the pain in his jaw resurfaced. "Oh, chances are 80:20 they won't make it back off that place," he huffed. "We all know how the inhabitants there are. And if they're still alive after what Ryker's planning, well, not like even any of us actually know where Viggo took the little runt; certainly they're not going to find answers on the island."

He glanced back toward the sky where the dragons had vanished. "We'll set sail in the morning; we've got info on them that Viggo's going to want to know about. Their new friends throw things for a loop I wager, and he's going to want to cut that loop."

* * *

 **A/N-Secrets aplenty, and both sides harbor them...Hiccup and company are certainly in for a bit of a surprise.**

 **So, what do you think? As always, let me hear your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews!**

 **And, as I'm sure many of you know, with the new RTTE season out there's a lot of new material to chew on. The identity and interesting relations of a new villain, the return of an old one (really, glad they didn't get rid of him, too much potential for that and so much tension building around him again), and some shocking connections I certainly wasn't expecting. I mean, really, Johann? Don't expect him to play out like that here, but it's certainly an interesting twist on the story. Some elements may as is typical show up in later chapters of this book (since I'm still writing out I'd say the last third or so as we speak; it's gonna be a long one, already over 300 pages), and there will be 4 new Book of Dragons entries sometime in the future, so keep an eye out!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	10. Chapter 9: No Welcome for the Triumphant

Chapter 9

No Welcome for the Triumphant

/

 _The purest path is the hardest won_

 _For the world denies its good_

 _Do you wish for what you've earned?_

 _It shall not be found upon earth_

 _Humanity holds greed and grudges_

 _It does not easily give up its praise_

 _Though you have done only what is in right_

 _What is right pleases few as it should_

 _Seek not the approval of the crowd_

 _Chase the heart of what's greater_

 _Win over not man or his wants_

 _But earn the graces of God_

 _-0-_

Since he could only travel short distances at a time, it took Loki a series of hours to move everyone with him to their first intended stop. Teleportation was luckily nowhere near the level of exhausting as Hawken's electric travel mode (though why this was, was a metaphysical question that the Asgard illusionist would never be able to answer), but every stop over distances more than a few miles required some time for reorientation, especially where no notable landmarks existed (fair swaths of Francium were almost painfully flat and featureless, a terrible place to get lost in).

The Alps and Apennines were refreshing changes from that scenery later in the evening, and when they finally came to a stop on a hilltop above Rome, all who were present gave out sighs of relief. It was a fair sized group –Camicazi, Tuffnut, Stormfly, Twintail, Feren, Delta, Talon, Shadow, Kingsley, Attonius, Eret, and Spitfire- and they were all exhausted and ready to rest for the night. However, there would be no rest just yet; while there was still daylight, they would search as closely as they could here.

"First time I've been back here since the Malin incident," Attonius breathed out, taking in the sight of the Italian countryside blooming in the warm mid-spring weather. "I must wonder how the safe house is holding up."

"I bet we can stop there for a short time to see how things are going," Cami decided, looking around as well as she got her bearings.

"That would be much appreciated; it concerns me somewhat that Castor and Eryn and the others have not sent us any letters recently to notify us of happenings."

"Maybe they just forgot?" Tuff queried, to which he received and eye roll from Cami.

"Tuff, I love you, but you're dense sometimes; ministers don't just up and forget their brothers like that."

"Well, you guys were the ones who were actually here last," Feren said, looking to Attonius and Cami, "so we're following your lead on where to look and stop in. If all is well at the safe house, then we need to find the markets and trading ports."

"The shadier ones especially, as unappealing as that is sounding to me right now," Delta drawled.

"Alright, enough chatter then," Attonius decided, moving to climb onto Spitfire behind Eret (as per the arrangements made prior to teleporting to Italy). "It's only a short flight from here if I have my bearings correctly to the safe house, so we can stop in there for a time and they can help us to become caught up on any local situations we ought to be made aware of."

The others followed suit, loading up (save for Loki; telekinesis ensured he had no need to hitch a ride) and taking off, staying low to the trees to avoid notice too soon from the locals and heading to the south. The atmosphere was deceptively relaxed and calming, warm and slightly humid breezes wafting in from the Mediterranean and filling the dragons' wings and making gliding easy especially at their low altitude. The more southerly sun peeked out between the dotted clouds above, filtering the light so that even as it began to sink in the sky it was not harsh, turning everything a soft golden hue in background. Little sound reached the riders up in the sky, but what did was rather comforting: birdsong, the soft rustling of new spring leaves, and the occasional chattering of some woodland creature.

Warm fuzzy feelings rapidly evaporated upon reaching the safe house however.

"Oh Lord above!" Attonius cried, looking down in horror. "What…what on earth has happened here?!"

Stone still stood without care, but wooden support beams, the broad front doors facing the nearest road, and the sturdy flagpole that once stood above the structure's courtyard were all no longer in place. Scorch marks and shattered splinters covered the scene instead, the banners that once flew on the flagpole and corners of the building completely gone or shredded upon the walls. Even one or two of the stones on the building faces bore shattered scars, evidence of some severe event that had transpired only recently.

The riders landed, and everyone piled off of the dragons, rushing for the hole where the doors once stood. "Brutus!" Attonius yelled, stepping quickly past what was left of the shattered wood panels. "Eryn, Tatian? Anyone here?"

"Yes, if only barely," Brutus answered wearily, limping out around the corner and into view. "The others are back in the healer's room. We…we had an interesting night a few days ago, as did the rest of Rome."

"Were you attacked?" Loki asked, peering at the plethora of evidence to suggest so. "Rival power, a raid?"

"A raid of sorts, but unlike anything I've ever seen," Brutus affirmed. "For once, at least in part, our old fears concerning dragons were proven out."

A deathly silence suddenly pervaded the group. They glanced at each other, and then all to the dragons, whose eyes were widened with concern.

Twintail voiced their worries first. "Dragons did all this?" he asked slowly. "Under another Alpha, or some group on their own?"

"If it was an Alpha species then it is very good at hiding its influence," Brutus said. "These dragons all acted individually, and were even attacking each other in the chaos; I've seen enough of how you reptiles normally behave over the last few years." He looked pointedly at Twintail, then at Stormfly. "These though…they acted as if all conscious thought had been erased from them, and replaced by great rage and hunger. Up here, we were attacked by a Nightmare, a Timberjack –hence the shattered poles- a pair of Moldruffles, and a species that I have never seen before, wingless and serpentine but capable of flight. The city of Rome itself came under fire from many of the common species as well as, if they can be believed, a Mood Dragon and Whispering Death. I do not think either of those dragons survived the encounter."

"A Mood Dragon?" Stormfly queried, her scales paling. "We're a gentle species though; most like to keep to themselves. Why would one attack?"

"Why would Nadders or Timberjacks seek to destroy this place?" Brutus asked in return, gesturing to the safe house. "Our home here is still as intact as it is because we were sheltering two of the former and one of the latter at the time, and they helped us drive off all but one of the Moldruffles. That dragon was knocked out in the incident and we have her, unfortunately, tied up in one of the stables to prevent injury further to us or herself." He shook his head, and placed a hand to his forehead. "These dragons were not of sound mind when they came here, and they swept through like a plague; Rome drove off or killed the ones that attacked them, and nearly all the progress we've made in the past few years –as people were far more receptive to our message after your visit with Hawken, Attonius- has been ruined in naught but a few hours."

"Can you show us the dragon you have here?" Cami asked. "I mean, might be a long shot but maybe we can help; other dragons would know best what's wrong."

Brutus hesitated for a moment, before nodding softly. "I would warn you to keep your distance though," he said as he turned to lead them through the hall, "because even as well-trained as you all are these dragons reacted in ways I could not possibly have predicted."

Loki huffed in a half chuckle, smiling softly. "I doubt that will be a problem," he assured, looking at the remains of the doors and making an upward sweep with his hand. The shattered remains followed the gesture, rising up and binding back together until they resembled something like a decent pair of door panels once more, settling on their hinges and closing behind the group.

Brutus watched open-mouthed for a moment, before it shut in an exasperated frown and he turned away again. Loki grinned upon catching him mutter a faint, "Shouldn't even be surprised anymore," as they traveled through the hall (which was only slightly more devoid of scorch marks near the entrance than the outside of the building was).

Cami and Stormfly remembered the guest rooms that they passed, but as they continued further into the complex they approached an area the two had not visited. The living quarters of those who resided in the building and a series of variously sized "stables," with doors leading directly outside, began to branch off from the corridor. Brutus slowed them down in front of the second such stable, and carefully opened the door before stepping aside to let them see within.

Inside, lying on the bare stone that so many dragons oddly preferred and secured by tempered leather ropes and holdfasts on the walls that were clearly put in as an emergency need, was a young female Moldruffle of a color difficult to describe (Feren decided it was something along the lines of yellowish-pewter). It appeared to be asleep at the moment, with slow breaths causing its exposed sides to rise and fall rhythmically.

"It doesn't look to be all that out of sorts," Eret mused, kneeling down as he looked the dragon over. Loki quirked an eyebrow however, cautiously moving forward until he was standing just in front of the dragon's head.

"She appears to be about half the size of Bertha's dragon," he said, "young, seemingly in good health, though perhaps a little on the thin side. I am starting to wish that Valka were here with us; I may have many years of experience dealing with dragons but she still knows far more than I could ever dream of. If"-

The dragon's eyes snapped open in a sudden flash, violently jerking up to the Asgard, and following the action she sprang upward, straining against the restraints with a caterwauling growl. As the others jumped back in shock however, Loki merely lifted a hand, at the ready to halt the Moldruffle if she did somehow manage to break loose. Moreover, he leaned even closer, examining the dragon's wild eyes.

They were narrowed, seemingly unable to open to their widest extent, giving the constant impression that the dragon was in fact seething with fury. The pupils were naturally narrowed slits as opposed to the forced closure seen under an Alpha's influence, and they were ringed by unusually dark irises. The whole animal was vibrating under a manic energy, and she paused only to catch short breaths before trying to snap the restraints again, going nearly far enough to dig even the relatively soft leather into her scales.

"She's very unwell," Stormfly confirmed, though it wasn't necessary to voice the fact. She glanced between the Moldruffle and Loki, who nodded agreement. "This isn't an Alpha's influence, nor is it any sort of grudge she's holding. She…it looks almost as if she's contracted rabies, but that's a disease only mammals can get."

The Mood Dragon leaned down next to Loki, eyes widening placatingly as her scales softened to a reassuring robin's egg color. ::Forgive the treatment you have been given here, it is necessary for your safety and ours,:: she crooned. ::Can you understand me? Can you say what has happened to you?::

A savage hiss answered back, and the dragon's tail struggled to whip around in a furious frenzy. Droplets of fire also formed along the Moldruffle's wing membranes.

"Well, she's entirely unresponsive in any sentient manner," Stormfly announced, shuffling back as she flushed a pale yellow. "Brutus Loki, she is very unwell; this dragon is not showing any sentient traits whatsoever. It's…it's as if she's devolved to the state of the primitive species, like the Cavern Crasher, but constantly in a rage. I, uh, don't know any illnesses that cause anything like that, and she's not giving off pheromones."

"So, like, she's angry at everything?" Tuffnut piped up, grinning. "Totally know how that feels; cool! I mean, no it's not, but she's capable of causing so much destruction and not even caring! Dragon of fury!"

"She's also capable of destroying herself in the process," Brutus snapped, glaring with disapproval at the lanky blond. "They acted like they didn't recognize the risks at all when they attacked, coming close to crashing themselves into the walls or landing hard on shattered beams that could have skewered them when they fought."

"Well then, we need to find a cause, and if need be a cure," Talon spoke up, drawing attention to himself for the first time. "It could be all these dragons happened upon something that made them ill, or there's an epidemic passing through, like the plague with prairie dogs."

"Like what?" Brutus asked, looking at him in confusion.

"Little rodents from North America," Delta answered. "But there's a worse option too, and if Stormfly's not picking up pheromones maybe more likely: Viggo knew we'd be heading out to find Tsefan, and we know he has access to things like Dragon Root and eel extract; he might have some sort of concoction that he can poison dragons with and then set them free, and we're seeing the results of him contacting associates ahead of us to slow us down."

"As much as I hate to say that it sounds like a possible theory," Feren sighed, "you could be right. But first thing's first"- he was cut off momentarily by a piercing yowl from the bound jaws of the Moldruffle, "-we need to find out what happened in the city too, and find Viggo's men to see if we can't piece together something from this mess. If they happened to send Tsefan this way, hiding their tracks with feral dragons would make a lot of sense."

"Hey, think Percival and company are still around?" Cami grinned. "I'm sure after last time that we can at least intimidate him into talking if things are really bad."

"I haven't interacted with him if he is," Brutus answered, "but Martin and Ralen are still both around. The latter hasn't changed much, though he has been a touch less rude than before, and the former has built up his own business and has become a welcome ally to us, even a friend, what with his experience and new reach. I can give you directions on where to find them if you wish, and then it would be wise you go sooner rather than later so that things have less time to devolve further."

"And we thank you for that information," Feren answered, smiling gratefully.

Brutus nodded. "You are welcome, uh…"

"Feren."

"Feren. I shall go find a parchment immediately."

"No need," the cat said, turning and opening a pack on his side and pulling out a pen and notepad from it. "Here; this will be easier to write with as well."

Information was soon passed on, and the party soon found themselves traveling down the road toward Rome (and Cami was gaining a distinct and disturbing sense of déjà vu). The sparse woodland was marred in patches here and there by burns and broken trees, giving the trip a far more subdued atmosphere than the flight to the safe house, almost worse than when she and Hawken, with the others, went to find out about Malin years before.

"I hope we figure this out quickly," Kingsley said softly from where he was coiled around Feren's neck. "If it is the hunters causing this somehow, what happens if they affect Tsefan with it?"

"Well, barring the slight chance that Night Furies can't be affected, odd as they all seem to be," Shadow mused, earning a couple of smirks (the ones they know took a lot after goofs like Hiccup, Hawken, and Holly, after all), "we'd better be able to acquire a cure. I don't want to think of alternatives beyond that, honestly."

With that dreary statement, the mood grew even darker, and eyes focused blankly on the road ahead.

The guard tower that Cami remembered loomed before them soon enough, and as they neared shouts rang out as soldiers scrambled to get into a defensive position. Somewhere in the din everyone managed to pick up on the yelled words "Mood Dragon!" several times, and Stormfly cringed in response, scales graying out as she tried to make herself look smaller. Several lines of the red-crowned soldiers marched forward with swords and javelins held at the ready, before the head of the procession stumbled to a halt; he definitely recognized a couple of the members of the traveling party before him, just as they recognized him.

"Oh, not _you_ again," Percival groaned, lowering his sword; around him, the others reluctantly followed his lead.

"Gee, nice to receive such a warm welcome," Cami drawled, sauntering forward with Attonius, her hands on her hips. "If your feelings toward our friends here were a little more pleasant before you might have had less reason to dislike us this time around, you know."

"Yet considering what our city has just experienced only a few days ago, my recognizing your 'friends' with mere reluctance should be taken gratefully," Percival snapped back, giving her a sneer.

"Yes, the dragon attack," Attonius spoke up before Cami could, knowing she would devolve it into an arguing match if she could. "My associates informed us of the incident, and they were besieged as well, but the dragons they were taking care of at the time also helped fend off the raiders in question."

"Dragons willingly fighting other dragons, instead of joining them?" another guard asked curiously.

"Is that so shocking?" Attonius responded. "They're not so afield from people in their habits; even under normal circumstances they can have differing views and opinions amongst themselves, and can argue like we do. But these aren't normal circumstances either, I can tell you."

Percival pursed his lips, before nodding to the others around him. As they sheathed their weapons fully, some even returning to the guard tower and checkpoints to keep vigil, he said lowly, "You had best explain what occurred then, Attonius. Much of the populace became more tolerant, open-minded about dragons after you and that shape-shifter were last here, but there's more than enough outcry from them now after this incident that it might as well have been for naught. Unless you can lay out why it happened, you might not survive even walking into Rome."

"Heh, I'd like to see them try to get rid of us. Like really, I want them to try," Tuffnut quipped, before letting out a muffled "Oomph!" as Cami stepped back and elbowed him.

Attonius nodded, but instead of speaking he simply looked to another in their party. Percival followed his gaze, and quirked his eyebrow at the garb of the man the attention was now on; it looked ancient and almost regal in some ways, and disturbingly similar to the coat he remembered Hawken wearing.

"I can likely explain best," Loki said, understanding the looks. "At least, the best one that isn't a dragon can."

"And you are?" Percival queried.

"Loki Asgard. My family was unfortunately the source of many of the Norse myths that pervade the north still."

"So you claim to have been around for a very long time, I assume then? Several hundred years is quite a tale to suppose to have lived."

"Indeed, though I did not get to experience much of that time; my sister, and the sorceress responsible for that mess, were on this earth for over 900 years though. But to the present issue however: the dragons you were attacked by were unwell, in a state you might call deranged or pure madness, though from what agent we have no idea. Dragon sociality includes Alpha species that can in a manner of speaking telepathically control and direct un-bonded dragons, but when we observed one of these afflicted raiders earlier today, she showed none of the signs of being under an Alpha's influence. They are under their own power, but not in their own right minds."

"You have one of the dragons captured?"

"They were forced to subdue her in order to avoid further injuries," Attonius answered, eyes narrowing. "And I know what you're thinking, _Percy_ ; we're hoping to find a cure, not kill her."

"Do not call me that, Attonius," Percival growled.

"Aw, what, doesn't it fit you?" Cami teased, smirking as she received a piercing glare.

"Enough," Loki snapped, fists clenching. While his friends backed off, knowing his capabilities, Percival only gave him a deadpan look. "Percival, these dragons are either sickened by a poison or disease, and we must find out which it is. Disease, though unlikely since none of our dragons here reacted as if it were, could spread and cause a greater epidemic, and if poison then that either means a source that can be avoided or removed, or someone purposely causing this. If it is the latter, then we are dealing with someone who controls a dangerous weapon that is a threat to us as much as it is you, and it would be in your best interest to aid us in preventing that."

"A more dangerous weapon than the Roman army?" Percival scoffed.

"There are dragons you could not dream of taking down with even a whole army," Loki dismissed, "and if it is a poison it could be more universal than just affecting flying reptiles; how hard-pressed would you be to fight if you were having to kill your own ailing men?"

The possible weight of that risk finally broke through and sank in, Percival's expression sobering. It could be for nothing, something that would just hurt the dragons, and then he wouldn't care, but if it wasn't…

"The emperor may wish to speak with you in that case," he decided. "You will not be well-received at first with what has happened however, so as loathe as I am to say it I and Taril here will escort you. But, if you might be able to prevent this from happening again, or at least answer some of our questions about it, then Peberona will likely wish for your words." He picked up his hanging sword and sheathed it, turning and marching to the city's entrance with the man apparently dubbed Taril next to him. Loki glanced to the others, who simply shrugged without having any clearer answers at the sudden change in tone, and followed behind the pair of guards.

Percival was right. The moment they entered Rome proper and into the view of others, the civilians presented one of two immediate reactions: fear and panic, running to hide inside buildings and behind carts, or outright anger that they displayed as looks of revulsion, glares, even shouts or insults hurled their way, and some even approached with various sharpened or blunted instruments with intent for some twisted sense of revenge. One look from Percival halted most at least, they willing to respect an authority's judgement and the angered citizens realizing the unwise act of trying to harm escorted individuals in the presence of the guards. But one small group of men and women were far more brazen than the rest, coming in to the back of the group and hurling stones and trying to grab the tails of Stormfly, Spitfire, and even Feren. One of the younger males managed a good yank to the latter.

Feren's reaction was instantaneous; cats are fast, the Macawnivore no less so, and he spun on a dime and pounced, pressing with one massive paw down to flatten the blond rabble-rouser to the cobblestone before drawing in a breath for a roar.

Tigers are loud, disturbingly frightening when they let loose, but Feren was more than three times the size of even the biggest of those, and his announcement of presence matched. The reverberating cacophony echoed down the street, silencing the block, before he tapered off and looked down with a toothy snarl, his two forward-curving tusks practically gouging the path on either side of his captive's head.

"Do not touch me again," he bellowed, teeth bared in full. "You won't get the courtesy of a warning the second time." With a snort he backed up, releasing the man who lay there in shock for several seconds before scrambling back up to join his cohorts, no longer brave enough to come anywhere near the big cat.

Feren caught out of the corner of his eye Stormfly's scales shifting somewhere between gray and a saddened blue, and nodded to himself. Standing up high on all fours, he let loose another bellowing warning.

"We know what happened; you're all mad about the disastrous raid you suffered, and we understand that!" he said loudly. "But we were not at fault, there is an illness behind this, and we are here attempting to find answers! Your harming us will only ensure greater risk of it happening again. If there is any other attack on any one of us, we will consider it unprovoked and worthy of defense against, and I will give you one warning: you will _not_ win that fight!" Without giving any time for response, he turned to the rest of the group with a hardened expression on his muzzle. "Before anyone else here gets the bullheaded notion into their brains to pull my tail again, let's go."

As he marched past, dumbfounded looks followed; the Macawnivore was usually among the most level-headed of the Descendants, preventing conflicts and acting as a calming agent. That he was deciding suddenly that the situation permitted retaliation was not a comforting sign; nor was the overhanging problem they faced however, so perhaps it was understandable.

Word spread faster than they walked. The angered looks didn't die away entirely of course, but no one was running off in a panic or attempting attacks either. As Percival led the group further into the city, the houses and other structures began to grow larger, more ornate and clearly under the domain of wealthier peoples. Simple brick and wood gave way to ornate stones and marble pillars, spreading terraces, and elaborate gardens. The sights were not terribly shocking to a group used to living halfway in a modernized world, but Delta caught Tuffnut eyeing one particularly decorative ornament on a terrace gate with strong longing, and smacked him in the shoulder with her tail.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You're painfully obvious Tuff. Don't even think about it."

Tuff grumbled and rubbed his shoulder, plodding along as the other two raptors chuckled at his expense.

They soon approached a very large, terraced villa, centered by a sturdy and truly massive house that one could not mistake for anything other than belonging to the emperor. Smooth stone and mortar walls shone red under some form of tempered paint, sloping roofs layered in ochre shingles, and white marble columns held up the overhang above patios lining all faces of the structure. Each terrace descending around it had been sculpted with bushes and flowers, or garden plants several of which were in full bloom already and making the air alluringly fragrant.

The final component to the sight was the fence of polished iron bars, held up by granite pillars and twisted into an ornate gateway guarded by four imposing men. Said men immediately stood tall and crossed their spears as the group approached, sending a clear message of non-admittance.

"Stand at peace, men," Percival announced, holding out his hand to halt their procession as he and Taril continued forward. "We carry a message for Emperor Peberona, a party here that may be of assistance in preventing possible further attacks from dragons. It is an urgent matter."

"We will pass the message on; wait here," one of the guards ordered, turning to open and slip through the gate as the others held their positions and looked at the Riders mistrustfully. Then, they waited as he walked up the path and disappeared beyond the bushes obscuring the front of the house.

Feren and Stormfly both leaned forward, ears pricked up as they tried to pick up conversation from within, but as the distance was too far they soon resigned themselves to simply waiting with the rest.

Minutes passed in awkward silence under the watch of the palace guards, tails flicking back and forth impatiently and thumbs twiddling away likewise. Kingsley, ever the more quiet one, was also becoming fidgety from where he now sat around Shadow's neck, eyes flickering in temptation over the gate he knew he at least could disappear through without the guards being any the wiser. He needn't have worried long however, as soon all eyes turned back toward the path down from the palace where the guard from before was returning to them. This time however, he had another party following behind them.

The new individual was tall and imposing, dressed in almost robe-like garments in shades of scarlet, gold, and violet, and an ornamental golden wreath-like crown on his short, red-tinged brown hair. He paused in front of the gate for a moment, before stepping forward and opening his arms in a "come hither" gesture.

"Permit them within," he ordered as they approached, slowing in an expanded plaza on the path as the other guards moved in a practiced systematic order to fully unlock and swing the gates outward and open.

Knowing this was to be a situation of diplomacy, Loki and Feren both cast Tuffnut a pointed look, which he luckily recognized and timidly nodded, sidling up next to Cami instead. Then, they all stood up as straight as they could and approached through the gates.

"I am told you are here on account of the dragons?" the robed man asked, arms crossing as they came to a halt in front of him.

"We are here primarily in search of a kidnapped member of our family," Feren answered, drawing a well-hidden but clearly surprised rising eyebrow from the man, "but have our own concerns as well now over what has occurred here, as it could threaten our own search and has a small chance of being the result of the same people at large."

"I see," the man mused, before giving a slight introductory bow. "I am Barthel Peberona, emperor of Rome; forgive my surprise as I have never conversed with a…" he trailed off as he held a hand out to Feren questioningly.

"Macawnivore," the cat supplied. "I'm not exactly a common species; none of us are exactly normal travelers though."

"I see; very well," Peberona nodded. "I will also say I am not currently in a place of comfort with dragons being here after what happened –even my house is still being repaired, let alone the rest of the city- but I will extend the provision of doubt if you can provide answers, or a solution."

"It is a bit early to attempt saying that we could have a solution, sir," Eret said, "but our friends to the north in the safe house were attacked as well, and they had to tie up one of the dragons that raided them with the help of dragons that had been staying there at the time, and we were able to examine her."

"Dragons helped fight other dragons?"

"We are capable of knowing right versus wrong," Stormfly answered, drawing Peberona's gaze again as she bit back a growl at hearing the same phrase the second time that day. "And we know when things we don't like are necessary, like restraining another dragon that has lost their mind."

"Yes, as Stormfly said the dragons that raided Rome were not doing it of their own natural volition," Attonius affirmed. "Emperor Peberona, they were under the influence of either a disease or some form of toxin, we don't know yet which because even the dragons couldn't pick up any tells to inform us. We fear the latter because of the coincidental nature of this occurring shortly before we arrived here, and if that is so then we all face a possible serious threat to our safety."

Peberona's expression darkened somewhat as he took this in, before he gestured for them to follow him. "This sounds like a topic to discuss in more comfortable settings," he said. "Come, you must be hungry if you have been traveling, so please join me for a meal as my guests." They didn't miss his nod to the guards, a signal to watch them carefully, but did not make comment on it as they followed.

Within, the palace was even more ornate than without; priceless tapestries and ceramic works and sculptures adorned the walls and expertly carved tables and stands at every turn. Peberona led them to a large room centered by a single massive table, already laid out with food. With a single clap, several men and women rushed in, setting up new places along the table for each of the travelers to be seated at before disappearing again.

"One thing I was actually pleased about the last time some of you were in the city was that you managed to sway the public concerning their opinions on owning slaves," the emperor said, watching one of the last men to leave, "though your means of doing so I cannot say I was equally happy with. I always believed in payment and recognition for services, unlike some many of my predecessors here –trust and amiability goes so much further in maintaining rule than power and fear- but the public sways the rulings as much as or more than I do."

"Yeah, Hawken's always been a bit brazen about his beliefs," Cami said, "when he knows he can win the fight that may follow; nowadays that's nearly always too."

"Ah, he's the shape-shifter I've been told of, isn't he?"

"Yep! He's off searching for our missing family member elsewhere, since this mess is throwing us all over –Tuff, I swear if you don't eat with some civility while we're here I'll get Ruffnut to help me pound you flat into Thor's peak when we get back!"

The accused Viking looked up with a deer-in-the-headlights gaze, messy strips of chicken hanging from his mouth and the leg he was holding. He was the first one to be eating too, the rest still only just sitting down along with the emperor. With a guilty swallow, he cleared his mouth and gave a sheepish chuckle.

"Heh heh, sorry Cami. I'm a Viking though; we eat messy!"

"I'm a Viking too, but at least I have class when in the company of important people, unlike my husband apparently." She reached over and smacked him upside the head for the behavior, before giving the emperor an apologetic look.

Peberona only laughed. "I've seen worse manners from some of my own officials," he dismissed. "Though I appreciate the thought, madam. Please, enjoy."

Silence (or a relative semblance) fell for several minutes afterward as everyone partook in the provided food (even the dragons, raptors, and Feren when bowls of uncooked meats were brought out at Peberona's request; Kingsley though could go some time before eating, and so sat on the back of Eret's chair simply waiting). It was quite a layout, unsurprising for such a figurehead, but soon enough meals were polished off and attention returned to the fact that there was something that needed to be discussed still.

"So you are here on a mission of rescue, and you have reason to suspect our plight may be in some way related," Peberona spoke up, summarizing what had been shared with him thus far as he leaned back in his chair, fingers intertwining. "Can you elaborate at all in what ways I may assist, or provide information so I can understand better?"

"Certainly," Feren answered first. "I, Kingsley here, and in some ways the three raptors there, are all what we call Descendants; there are several more of us, and even beyond the deeper-than-friends familial bond we have we are in a way physically related, blood family. I explain this so that you understand why I say the kidnapped Night Fury we are searching for is family, and furthermore my nephew."

"It was a Night Fury that was kidnapped? I thought there was only one."

"Yes, until three years ago when my sister Achlema came about alongside the rest of the Descendants in to the world. She paired with the original Night Fury, our brother-in-bond Toothless, and had a litter."

"And one of the children, Tsefan, was taken about a week ago by men working for a soulless hunter named Viggo Grimborn," Eret supplied in. "Are you familiar with that name? Or perhaps, the Coalition of Hunters and Trappers he directs at least?"

"Hmm, Viggo, Viggo, Viggo…" the emperor mused, looking upward thoughtfully as he stroked his chin. "Yes, the name sounds vaguely familiar. Is he perhaps stationed northward?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that's who they were talking about then. Yes, his men I am more familiar with; I rarely go down to the markets and docks myself, but those who purchase the materials for us who live at this end of the city have brought back information and of course goods from them at times. Usually they're fur and skin traders and the like, dragon-hide leathers –I never really liked the look in the first place, mind you, so such things I kept well away from- and sometimes exotic creatures and spices. A few have recently been angering that hot-headed merchant Ralen with the metal works and wares from the Far east that they've pedaled, and some interesting herbs and exotic plants from south in Africa."

He realized he'd suddenly veered off track, and his gaze focused on his guests again as he gave an awkward cough. "You say that they –or someone they hired, perhaps?- kidnapped a Night Fury? It would be a long way from where you have traveled to get here by conventional means."

"Viggo seems to have a lot of unconventional things at his disposal," Talon replied. "He managed to clear his men out of easy reach in a matter of days after they took Tsefan, and when you're up against dragons like those we live with, that is a very difficult task."

"Then you are here searching for leads," Peberona concluded. "And you say you suspect that this league may be behind the dragons that attacked us out of the blue? What if it is a disease?"

"It could be," Stormfly answered, leaning over the table slightly, "since you can weaponize them, but unless it were within the first few hours of contracting an illness we dragons tend to give off pheromones that others can detect as a warning, and as it has been several days since this attack occurred, let alone when whatever happened to them triggered this, the Moldruffle we were able to examine ought to have been giving off those signs. Toxins don't cause the same reaction since those aren't contagious."

He eyes cast downward for a moment, scales turning a muted blue. "Were it a disease, only Spitfire, Twintail, and I here would be at risk, as draconic diseases almost never pass to other creatures, but…if it's a poison…"

"Then it's possible that anyone may be affected by it in a similar manner," Peberona finished the thought. "Most of the world is familiar with the effects of blue oleander on dragons, and how they're poisonous if we were to eat them too even, but there are no places where that grows nearby, and the dragons would have been sick, not enraged. But what else could cause such a thing?"

"That is our biggest problem, I am afraid, "Loki said. "These are not symptoms I am familiar with, and I have been around for a very long time. And with how Viggo knows we are looking for the Night Fury, this attack is terribly coincidental. He trades with societies the world over, so he most certainly has access to any number of terrible poisons and weapons and he has no qualms about using anything in his grasp to get what he wants."

He turned a hard gaze to the emperor, and made a sweeping gesture. "That could include, should he decide, forcing new conflicts between dragons and people so that he can exploit it for profit; if he has a cure or can provide 'protection', as he might put it, then making an issue out of what was once nonexistent is the surest way of knowing he can sell what he has to offer."

"So then if Viggo is causing this, then not only would he be ensuring that you are slowed down in your search, but he is spreading a message that part of your own party, or even all of you, are at risk and he may be developing opportunities for himself to not only sell within but directly exploit a vulnerability and fear within my city," Peberona said. "Outlandish as it may be, if such a theory is correct, and you can find the source of this, you will have my favor, and assured safe passage in the Roman Empire. If your suspicion is true the source may lead you to the men responsible for, if not your missing dragon directly too I assume."

"You wouldn't perhaps have a suggestion then on where to start looking?" Kingsley asked. "Like where the dragons came from, or if there have been reports of recent attacks elsewhere? Actually having somewhere to start would help greatly."

"Not personally, I'm afraid." Peberona shook his head. "But certainly amongst the traders and merchants at the dock market; if anything has happened they will have heard, and you might even find your coalition hunters if you're lucky." He turned to regard the soldiers who had stood on guard through the exchange, rather than partake alongside the people they'd escorted. "Percival and your second, lead them to the market with the announcement of our agreement here: they are under my protection for their hopeful service to us, and searching for a solution to prevent further atrocities. No dragon is to be harmed if they do not provoke the attack, _any dragon_."

"Yes, my liege," Percival nodded, giving a respectful bow before he and Taril turned to lead the group away once more.

"Thank you for hearing us out, and helping us, Emperor Peberona," Cami said as she stood up, giving a slight curtsy (and drawing disbelieving looks from the others, unused as they were to a Camicazi that wasn't simply brazen and blunt), and Peberona returned the gesture with a respectful half-bow.

"No, thank you for assisting me in keeping my city safe, and informed of these threats," he answered, giving a wave as they walked out. "Good luck to you all."

Unsurprisingly, the city at large was displeased with hearing that dragons overall had officially been given a pass, but hearing news simultaneously that a search for a cause, and hopeful solution, was underway seemed to pacify the populace. This development was good news for the Riders and Loki, as the walk across the city to the docks was a long one. But, unfortunately it didn't stop Stormfly from wincing at the glares and fearful looks sent her way, her scales remaining in a constant slate blue color.

"Don't take it like that, Stormfly," Cami tried to reassure her dragon. "You know what people are like; one bad seed ruins the batch, and they always remember the bad one that sticks out more than they do the good."

"Yes, but that doesn't make it feel any better," the Mood Dragon exhaled, head hanging down low. However, a ghost of a smile did appear on her face. "It's like when you and Tuff booby-trapped Spitelout's outhouse with flypapers."

"And he still hasn't forgiven you for that," Kingsley called in from the other side of the group, eliciting laughter amongst the group and lifting spirits a little.

Cami smirked. "Well, not quite what I was trying to say, but yeah, he's holding onto that over all we've done for him so it's sort of similar."

The docks were a somewhat familiar sight to the crew, though several leagues larger than any of the setups within the Archipelago. Variously sized, dark-colored warehouses dominated the damp, muddier streets, and wooden docks stretched out onto the sea in a veritable maze of salt-encrusted paths. More than two dozen ships of varying nationality were moored alongside and taking up still only a smidge of the room available, sails tied up and merchants and tradesmen pushing wagons and hauling baskets of every item imaginable between their ships and the storage buildings, or simply trading them off with other merchants right at the ships. The familiar scent of salt air wafted through the atmosphere, but tainted with fish, soaked wood and pine tar, and hints of rust and mud.

"Gee, with all this to cover, where do we even begin?" Delta wondered, wide eyes blinking rapidly as she scanned the numerous ships. "Evening's going to be closing out soon too, so we don't have time to try interviewing every ship merchant we come across either."

"Not to mention a lot of them will try to barter the information they may have," Eret muttered. "Heh, maybe my experience might pull off some help here. Attonius, ready your diplomatic skills; we may need them too." He set off down one dock, searching for familiar faces or friendly appearances to pry for info from.

He didn't get far though, and the greeting wasn't friendly for an inch.

"Well, if it isn't Eret, son of Eret," a gravelly, almost nasally voice growled out from nearby.

Eret turned to find a somewhat dangerously dressed, muscular trader leaning against the side of a crate full of ropes nearby. The man pushed himself upright and took a couple of slow, sauntering steps forward, hand on the sword at his hip. From the ship nearby, several heads turned their way and expressions darkened to match the first man upon recognizing the Sami.

"Long time no see, _Eret,_ " the short-haired brunet continued. He thumbed the Turkish vest he wore, a symbol of the pride he had in his home country. "I'd have thought you would avoid the big marinas like this now, what with your turning your back on the Coalition and all that entails."

"You know, of all the places I had to run into you it had to be here, didn't it Grimwald," Eret groused, looking back at his friends and giving them a slight nod; he expected a fight here. "Please don't tell me you think you could actually take us on in some ill-construed attempt to get even. You actually still mad about that mess too?"

"Why wouldn't I be? You got into Viggo's good graces because you cheated me out of a deal and took it for yourself, and now you've gone and spat in the man's face to boot while I'm still here in the lower ranks, unknown to him. There's aplenty to be angry about, from where I stand."

"I'm telling you, don't try anything stupid," Eret warned, hand on his dagger. "If you know I don't work for Viggo, you know who these people are."

"A load of dragon-lovers and do-goods. Yeah, Ryker was around about a few months ago to fill us in on what you all didn't give away on your own. You've got sharp weapons, body suits, but you're not perfect. And we heard you were coming too."

A dozen clicking noises echoed around them, and suddenly the group noticed the men on the ship weren't the only ones watching. Three dozen crossbows fired all at once around them and the air filled with arrows. Though they instinctively flinched, there was no way they would have avoided them all.

Eret's warning had done its job though, and instead of even a handful of darts finding their mark, scarlet flares lit up the docks as they bounced harmlessly off of nearly a dozen activated barrier fields. An awkward silence followed, before Eret sighed and pulled out his dagger, taking two steps forward and pinning Grimwald against the rope crate. The other riders spread out in response, taking defensive stances across the dock and brandishing weapons (or fangs) to their ambushers.

Loki took a different route, turning his gaze to the ship and terrifying the occupants as he appeared in a dozen places at once, the semi-solid holograms brandishing daggers of their own and corralling the ship's crew near the plank that breached the side and the dock.

"Grimwald, was it?" Attonius said in a faux-lighthearted tone, stepping up next to Eret. "You're part of the Coalition of Hunters and Trappers, I take it, so you have some knowledge of Viggo's doings. I can't thank you enough for giving us a decent excuse to interrogate you of what you know too." The minister's expression darkened like a switch flicked. "Yah have mercy for your holding of grievances for so long, but they help us. What do you know of Viggo's plans for the kidnapping of a Night Fury from Berk?"

"K-kidnapping? I don't know what you're talking about!" Grimwald gasped, leaning away from the blade at his throat. He moved to take out his own sword, but Attonius swept forward and withdrew it himself, throwing it to the side and ignoring the clatter of metal as the sword bounced dangerously close to the edge of the dock.

"Don't lie to us," he snapped. "Viggo definitely had to have spread a message of some manner, otherwise you wouldn't have attempted to shoot us down, vendetta against Eret or not. There wouldn't be a point under common sense to expose yourself or risk retaliation otherwise, unless you're simply that stupid."

"He could be," Eret interjected, earning an involuntary sneer from Grimwald.

Attonius ignored the quip, and continued. "So, what do you know?"

Grimwald stayed silent, eyes wide as he tried to think of a way out of his position. They were right, he wouldn't have tried to take them on if he hadn't heard about the provision Viggo's plan of some sorts (no details had been handed out) had given, that none of the riders were supposed to do anything without risking some sort of terrible punishment, but he shouldn't have been so blind as to think they wouldn't defend themselves or take the same advantage of a situation presented.

It wasn't until Kingsley slithered up over Eret's shoulder and stared him down, hood flaring and a deep hiss building on his tongue, that the man cracked however. "I swear I never heard of anything about Night Furies, other than Viggo hates you!" he squealed. "Messages were sent out to stand against anyone from Berk if they showed up, because of some sort of leverage he was gaining, but that was it!"

"Very well then; perhaps you know possible places where he would take the dragon," Kingsley growled, drawing startled looks that the riders had all long since gotten used to. He leaned forward, scaly snout almost touching Grimwald's nose, and used the man's clear terror of snakes to his advantage. "You're a trader, you have to know some of the hideaways to store the wares."

"If he'd hide a dragon anywhere south the only thing that might work is in the Moroccan region," Grimwald babbled. "It's our main trade stop along Africa, but we've just been trading spices north, nothing heading south!"

"Great, another less-than-promising lead," Cami huffed nearby. "We ought to check it out though; not likely Viggo would tell mere subordinates like this worm the details of anything big. Alright, Grimwelts, how about the dragon attack that happened here? You know about that?"

"Uh, that we were going to take advantage of them and offer our services to the city?" Grimwald squeaked, ignoring the deliberate mispronunciation of his name in favor of fearfully watching the cobra not an inch from his face. "If someone made that happen it wasn't my crew, I swear!"

"Well, it's likely he's being honest," one of Loki's doppelgangers spoke up as he came up out of the ship's trapdoor, drawing more looks of surprise from the men on board. "Nothing but spice jars and your usual trapper's wares in the hold, unless they've got a secret compartment with poisons that I couldn't detect –hey!"

Attention shifted to one of the crew that had leapt off the ship to the dock, and was dashing away in a seeming attempt to escape the ongoing interrogation. Shadow sprinted forward in response, preparing to run the man down, but he skidded to a halt as the hunter passed by a dock pylon and was immediately clotheslined by a thick, muscular arm.

As the would-be escapee groaned, the owner of said arm reached down and picked up the man by the back of his shirt, and stepped out into view. A thick beard and trailing mustache matched long, knotted hair, still full of color but beginning to notably gray from age and experience. As he looked up to the group, shocked stares of recognition greeted him from several of them.

"Ingavar?!" Camicazi exclaimed incredulously. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Ingavar's eyes widened, followed by a matching grin. "Well, we're a traveling tribe, Miss Terevson, so I was here on a tradin' business," he answered with a chuckle. "I might ask you the same, 'specially with your threatenin' the other merchants here."

"It's Thorston now, actually," Cami corrected, gesturing to her husband. "I married Tuffnut of Berk a couple years ago. We're here looking for a young Night Fury that the Coalition of Trappers kidnapped, and we ran into another issue too."

"Well, that explains this then," Ingavar mused, looking disdainfully at the man in his grip as he approached. "Viggo's up to his old antics eh? That's nae surprising. His lackeys here give ye anything of use?"

"A place to check, on the Moroccan coast somewhere I'm guessing, but otherwise they're being rather useless at the moment."

The Viking Chief snorted as he tossed the runaway to the dock and placed his hands on his hips. "I'm thinkin' this one might have more te tell, want to question him instead? I've got a few questions of my own te answer, some problems my crew has run into recently as well."

Tuffnut took the initiative, marching up to the man and pointing the tip of his spear at him. "Alright sir, what are you hiding?" he demanded. "Are you part of this conspiracy? Did you make the dragons sick? Is this step one of a pandemic and somehow Tsefan is needed to finish it? Why are you trying to dominate the world? Why? Where was I going with this?"

"Oh Lord, give me strength," Camicazi groaned, sliding a hand down her face. "Alright Tuff, scoot over while your sweetheart takes care of things, will you? And hush while you're at it." She marched up and pulled the trapper to his feet, glaring up into his eyes (and cursed once again her short stature in such situations). "Alright, you heard him, what do you know that your boss here doesn't?"

"He doesn't know anything!" Grimwald shouted. "Skeldi's just the local ships-hand, and –hrrk!"

He gasped for air as Eret dug the hilt of his dagger into Grimwald's gut. "Continue, if you will," the Sami said, satisfied with his silencing of the hunter.

Cami nodded, and after hearing nothing from her own captive pulled out one of her shiny Mysteel swords, letting it flash menacingly in front of the man. Skeldi spluttered for a minute, before holding up his hands in surrender. "I heard the factions from the south preparing some sort of pandemic hunt on orders from Viggo," he confessed. "There have been ships heading north and east for months now in preparation. I don't know what for, but it's supposed to be big! We were sent here to see the result of a test for it, but I don't know anything more, I swear!"

"Viggo will hear about your squealing, Skeldi," Grimwald wheezed nearby, glaring alternately between Eret and the ships-hand.

"Actually, no he won't," Percival toned, finally making himself heard as he entered from the perimeter and walked up to the captive captain. "Skeldi will get a lighter sentence because he just gave us this confession, but you are _all_ under arrest for participation in conspiracy, disturbing in a violent manner the capital of the Roman Empire." The soldier pulled out a whistle from his pocket and blew it hard; several moments later, a flood of soldiers who had been patrolling the area appeared, swords at the ready.

"Arrest the crew of this vessel!" Percival ordered, taking Grimwald and tying off his hands as he looked to Eret. "You and your friends have your leads; good luck, and I hope you can solve this. I apologize for my attitude earlier in the day –one should know not to jump to conclusions by now- and should you return here, you will have all our support if necessary. But now, I must take care of this troublesome group as they deserve if that is alright with you."

At Eret's nod, the guard turned and began marching Grimwald away. "Farewell then," he called back over his shoulder, pointing his men toward the ship and ordering them to tie up and escort the crew away.

As he and the other soldiers carted the accused away from the docks, a silence fell on the scene for a moment before Twintail turned to regard their unexpected new acquaintance. "So you must be the Ingavar the Fearsome that we've been told about," he deduced. "My name is Twintail. Are the concerns you mentioned having to do with dragons going mad and attacking people as well, perhaps?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Ingavar confirmed, looking at the Zippleback with some surprise, "and pleasure to meet you. Seeing as I have never encountered a talking Zippleback before, I must assume some new events have transpired with Hawken and Berk since I was last up north?"

"In a manner of speaking," Twintail chuckled. "I, and Feren, Kingsley, and those three there," he gestured to the raptors, "are Descendants, semi-relatives to Hawken. Long story, wisest not to elaborate now. But, that was our confirmation that our search for our nephew is imperative."

Ingavar nodded, deciding too that it probably wasn't something he ought to press (the things he knew about that young man already, it would probably just make his head spin again) and turned. "Well, if ye walk with me back te my ship, perhaps we can help each other. I assume your nephew is the Night Fury mentioned before; I won't attempt to understand how that works, but I know the term 'family' is a might bit looser on Berk now." He chuckled at that, before growing serious again. "I didn't know Rome had experienced an attack until we docked here yesterday mornin', but similar incidents have occurred recently elsewhere on the Mediterranean and Africa. I received word that Alexandria had a visit from a feral pack of Speed Stingers and triple Strykes, and Andalucía was nearly evacuated by several Typhoomerangs a week ago. Many of the dragons didnae survive afterward, sadly, and I have begun te fear for the life of my Melania so I resolved te track this down, or at least keep her out of danger as best I could until it blew over, if it blew over."

"Wait, you mean to tell me you paired up with a dragon?" Eret asked incredulously. "Ingavar the Fearsome, bonded?"

Ingavar let out a belly laugh as he glanced back at Eret, holding his middle. "Oh come now, this from Eret, son of Eret, self-proclaimed 'finest dragon trapper alive' at one point?" he prodded. "I see you've got yerself a Changewing at yer side." He paused in his walking to regard the dragon closer. "And the biggest I've ever seen. You almost look familiar too, but I can't put a finger on it."

"Oh, that's Spitfire," Tuffnut said. "Yeah, remember when your men kidnapped Toothless and dragged him off to that fort? We broke this guy out at the same time too."

Now the light switched on in Ingavar's eyes. "Ah, that's right! I always said the world is smaller than people think; what are the odds? But to our previous topic, yes, I have a dragon. Rescued her as a youngling from hunters as well, and she's helped me keep my crew in line ever since. Though, she's had te be kept out of sight more often than I like in places like this. Ah, here we are."

They approached a massive longboat bustling with people, and several shouts of greeting went up both to the chief and his new guests. Ingavar paused and brought his fingers to his mouth, letting out a loud, piercing whistle, and an answering shriek sounded from below deck. Seconds later something erupted out of the hatch, great wings spreading and twisting expertly as a long, four-finned tail whipped out behind for balance to angle the dragon back down toward the dock.

She was an almost metallic golden-orange color, with highlights of red along the edges of her wings and tail fins, and her equally golden eyes were edged in just the slightest hint of violet, an appearance that made every Berk inhabitant's mind snap to a certain female Night Fury with equally spunky attitude and immaculate appearance.

"Y-you bonded with a Desert Wraith," Eret marveled. "I've only ever seen two in my life!"

"Yes, found her at a port in Senegal," Ingavar agreed, smiling. "Everyone, this is my right hand Melania; Melania, meet some of my old friends from Berk, and their acquaintances."

::Pleased to meet some of those I've been told so much about,:: she crooned, walking across the dock to stand next to Ingavar.

"She says it's a pleasure to meet us," Stormfly translated, and the Berkians nodded back warmly. Melania blinked in slight surprise, likely never having encountered a dragon that could speak common tongue before, but shook it off and looked up at her partner, awaiting his next move.

Ingavar turned his attention to his ship, and bellowed out, "Attention crew! We are taking on some new passengers te help us find the cause of the feral attacks, so please make room for the Vikings and, uh, Descendants of Berk."

"And Loki Asgard, friend of the Vikings," Loki quipped amusedly, and immensely enjoying the looks he received from Ingavar and several crew members.

"Loki?" Ingavar asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"As in, our old legends Loki?"

"The same. You did see the doppelganger trick earlier, right?"

"So you-you're real."

"Well, that should be obvious. I am, however, just a guardian like Hawken is, along with the rest of my family, so don't start bowing to me or referring to me as a deity or some silly mess like that. You wouldn't believe how much of a headache it was to find out how far those legends went."

Ingavar's mouth worked for a moment with no further sound escaping, before he set his jaw and looked to the ship. "Right, just another in a long line of Berkian surprises. Bitwolf, lead our guests to the quarters so they can set up, and ready for travel south. You remember Berk and company, yes?"

A young man who had just come up from below, hauling a crate of salted meat, looked up at the group and immediately his eyes snapped wide as he dropped said crate in shock.

"He-hey, Bitwolf!" Tuff greeted with an enthusiastic wave and a chuckle. "Remember me? Hey, we should catch up, great story about that uh, 'Shadow'-something dragon we fought!"

The brown-haired Viking now the focus of attention groaned. "We're bringing them on?" he complained. 'You've got to be kidding me!"

"You have your orders," Ingavar barked. "We finally have a clue to where to look with the feral mess and these good people are best equipped te handle it. Of course, if ye don't want to assist as ordered, I can always let Melania sand-blast you again. Your decision."

"Ugh, rock and a chafing place. Fine!" Bitwolf quipped, turning around and waving his hand. "Come on then, the sooner I show you where to go, the sooner this is over!"

"Don't worry," Feren chuckled as he stepped on board first, beginning to shrink in size to Ingavar and his crew's continued amazement, "you won't be bothered by us much. We won't even take up a lot of room; most of us, at least."

"Now I've seen everythin'," Ingavar muttered. "Shrinking cats and men we believed were gods; the heck did that boy do to this world?"

Eret laughed as he walked up next to him. "Yeah, not quite. Just wait until you get to watch the whole team in an all-out fight. Then you'll have seen everything."

* * *

 **A/N-Well, I had wanted to get this chapter out last weekend, but turns out it was a long one when I wrote it, and life happened too...oh well. Hope you enjoy; personally, I don't think it's the best one, but I needed to get this group started off on their leg of the journey, and we got to see some old friends again! Keep an eye out too, I've recently ordered the Serpents Heir, so if there are any elements of that I like they may become incorporated too.**

 **As always, let me hear your thoughts, predictions, critiques etc. in your reviews! And hopefully sometime in the next 4 weeks I'll get the first of the next set of Book of Dragons entries out...**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	11. Chapter 10: Rats in the House

Chapter 10

Rats in the House

/

 _It always hurts the worst_

 _When it's the closest who betray_

 _The ones you thought you'd trust forevermore_

 _With some it was all a lie_

 _They never cared for you_

 _They run hastily through the very hole they tore_

 _For others it comes even worse_

 _When they think what they do is right_

 _And they swear that all the hurt they caused was good_

 _But most agonizing of all_

 _Are those whose betrayal was what you needed_

 _Because you didn't see the truth when you could_

 _-0-_

The basement was nearly unrecognizable compared to the layout it had had only a couple years before, reorganized to a shocking extent. One wall consisted of an automated greenhouse and shelves of stored pots, surrounded by piles of stored or discarded machinery, tech, and half-finished attempts at engineering. Next to it were several workbenches and shelves full of ammunition, fishing supplies, books, and more tools than one could name; Sam's workshop, greatly renovated and enhanced over the previous two years.

On the other side of the greenhouse and storage shelves was a near mirror of the workshop, only this one filled with computers, books, software and various technology the rest of the family couldn't even begin to name or pronounce, as well as prototypes of at least a dozen different kinds of Mysteel-forged weapons. Two computers on the desks were running simultaneously, one flashing through images and presenting scrolling bars of comparison data as it attempted to match fingerprints, and the other tested line after line of software coding.

The latter was the machine Zipeau was focused intently on, scaled digits flying over the keys as the teal and gold dinosaur worked to build his new program, a system that had been in progress for over a year and was still nowhere near complete. He knew others would question his priorities with him working on the Traveler system while most of his family was out searching for their missing nephew, but Zipeau also knew that, aside from keeping an eye on the print analyzer nearby, there was little else he could do and if he let himself get bogged down by emotions he would end up doing something they'd all come to regret. Like Hawken, he had to have something keep him busy, and it was all the more imperative for the bookish saurian.

Footsteps down the stairs made Zipeau wince, and he turned to give a passing glance as Sam appeared at the basement doorway, trailed by the two dogs of the house.

"Have anything yet?" he asked, walking purposefully over to the Stenonychosaurus' workspace. "I know you only got back an hour ago after dealing with Stoick and Grimligh on Berk, but"-

"Yes, and forgive my being blunt, but the system does have to be set up and then have the prints scanned individually to compare for a match," Zipeau said flatly. "Since multiple people handled the radio I have to let it separate out Eret's, Hawken's, and my own prints before we can isolate the remaining sets. I am guessing it's probably one of Eret's crew unfortunately, since he found the radio on his ship in a place only they regularly frequent, but I have to let the whole database run since someone could have also planted it. It could take a while, and the past few days have already been exhausting for all of us."

"The usually polite bookworm has an attitude all of a sudden, so it must have been." Sam's gaze turned to the other computer. "Ready to tell us what that's supposed to do once you finish it? Or is that another secret we should keep out of?"

This managed to at least bring a ghost of a smirk to Zipeau's face. "I'm leaving it as a surprise, revolutionary as it may be if it succeeds. Still have a lot of coding to finish however and…" he trailed off for a moment as he peered at the screen, scowling as he found exactly what he was about to mention and moving to fix it, "…and as case in point, every section ends up with at least a bug or three that needs rewriting."

Silence fell as Sam moved over to his own workbench and began popping primers out of spent casings, the basement echoing with the sound of faint clacking keyboard buttons and metallic plinks, and the occasional excited snarl as the two dogs annoyed and played with each other. Eventually though, Sam sat back in his chair and sighed, and Zipeau somehow knew what subject was about to be broached.

"Do you think it was a good idea to let Holly run off to help in this search?" Sam asked, looking over at the dinosaur. "I mean, I know she was in a war before, and she rides a dragon, but she is only sixteen and we don't know what else goes on in that world."

Zipeau shot him a sidelong glance. "Legally, you might have been able to prevent her, but physically?" He snorted. "If neither Hawken nor Hiccup vetoed her help we all know there's no way to stop her. I'm certain she got her stubbornness from you."

"Hey! I resemble that remark."

They both chuckled, and Zipeau nodded. "I rest my case. But I don't doubt Holly will be fine; she's at this point no less prepared and capable than the rest of the team, and they're traveling the shortest distances of the three parties." He hummed in thought as he pondered that group. "If I were honest, I'm most worried about our new acquaintances; they seem experienced, but the world of dragons is probably very different from Narnia day to day."

"Knowing Hiccup, and Holly for that matter actually, they won't let those two get too hurt," Sam replied. "That's one of my other worries though; most of them are all in the same 'save everyone else' type of mindset, so if one of them gets hurt then they're all going to risk themselves saving them to the point of maybe everyone getting being injured. I know I'm taking a pessimistic view here, but"-

"I know you look at the world in a 'prepare for the worst' manner," Zipeau said, "but focusing on the worst case scenario won't help anyone here. We can pray, and if something does go really wrong we have the long distance radios to call the others and, if it's really bad, we can call the Asgards. They're out there, but they're not unreachable to us, so things will be"-

A sudden ding from the computer to his left cut Zipeau off, and his head snapped over to look at the print-matching system. On the screen to the left was the mystery print set on the radio, finally isolated by the computer, and on the right was the closest matching print in Zipeau's system, with a name attached beneath the image.

"Eret's not going to be happy about this when he gets back," the dinosaur sighed, pulling out a paper and writing down the name. "We've got a match, and as I feared, it's someone in his crew."

"It's not Arveni or Grimligh, is it?" Sam asked, standing up at the news to look.

Zipeau shook his head. "No, but it was his best fisherman, Tefari; I have to go and tell Stoick and Grimligh about this so they can apprehend him." He stood up and headed for the basement door, but paused at the base of the stairs. "Oh, and let Denise know; she had asked to be updated on this as well."

Under his breath as he trudged up the stairs though, Zipeau also muttered, "And I hope Grimligh gets ahold of Tefari before I do; if I go off…no, no, just keep up the friendlier appearances Zipeau, for the sake of everyone's mental health."

* * *

A mid-spring drizzle had descended on the village that evening, coating everything in a layer of damp and making the atmosphere bear down just that much more dismally. North as Berk was, a few flecks of snow spattered down amongst the fine drops as well, the cold seeping into anywhere unprotected. It didn't bother the local reptiles at all (save for the one trekking through the forest and trying to keep his papers dry at the same time), but nevertheless nearly all of them were hidden away with their riders or companions within the houses lining the now mud-filled paths.

The Haddock household was no different; two people within were busying themselves around the cooking stove (well, one was, and trying to keep the other away so as not to spoil the meal) while six dragons lazed about in the main room. Despite the packed setting, the renovated and much larger home still felt empty. Valka was already missing her son and his wife, as well as the other three Night Furies that typically settled there. Stoick was avidly trying to dance around similar emotions by keeping himself busy, and for once he was glad of the task at hand keeping Valka from throwing something in the cooking pot that didn't belong. It helped none though, that one of the missing house members was cause for the absence of all the rest.

::Tamaria, get down from there before you break something!:: Cloudjumper snapped, head swiveling up to glare at where the mentioned female Night Fury was clambering above the picture shelf on the wall (a new addition what with access to modern cameras from Hawken's home).

Valka still couldn't actually understand Dragonese, but she picked up on the tones well enough to discern the Stormcutter's message, and turned also to regard the young dragon.

"Oh, how many times have we told you not to play around the picture frames?" she scolded. "Get down from there!"

"Aww, but he wasn't looking and it was perfect!" Tamaria whined, casting a glance at her brother down below whom she had been preparing to pounce on. As she turned and suddenly jumped away from the wall, her tail caught a frame holding the image of Hiccup and Astrid taken shortly after their wedding and sent it tumbling.

Valka's breath hitched and she leapt for the photo, but knew she was too far to catch it. Ellia beat her to it however, diving under the frame and catching it between her toothless gums as carefully as she could. Then, she took it in her paw and turned to the woman.

"Here you go Grandma," she said, holding the picture up to Valka as she gave a disapproving look over her shoulder at her sister.

Valka chuckled at the title she'd earned in the little dragons' eyes, and took the frame gently before carefully setting it back on the ledge. "Thank you, Ellia," she said, before turning and crossing her arms as she glared down at Tamaria. "And for your incident, you can expect to help me dust all the furniture in the house tomorrow, top to bottom."

"Aww, but it was an accident!" Tamaria complained, slumping to the floor. "I didn't mean to knock it off!"

"One accident that should have been avoided, Tam, because we have warned you time and again that you are not supposed to be up there. Cloudjumper, I hate te ask, but can you and Thornado take them upstairs and keep an eye on them for a moment while we finish up down here?"

::Of course, Valka,:: the Stormcutter replied, despite knowing she couldn't understand his words; after all, she knew what he meant. The look of acquiescence was more than enough to get the message across. He looked to the Thunderdrum nearby, who also got up and gestured with his head up the stairs to the younglings.

::Come on, enough getting into your grandparents' hair,:: the squat blue dragon instructed. ::Dinner will be ready shortly and there are fewer things for you to break up there.::

::We're not that destructive,:: Lazuli grumped, but he obediently got up with the rest of his siblings and tromped up the stairway.

::You're right,:: Thornado admitted, ::the Twins still hold the record, though not for your lack of trying.::

Valka grinned at the draconic laughter that echoed up the corridor before turning to her husband, looking past his shoulder at the meat frying on the griddle of the wood stove. Stoick looked back, a skeptic's eye regarding his wife.

"If I see ye reach for the spice rack again," he warned.

Valka laughed outright this time and shook her head. "No, no, I'll leave it alone," she promised. "Smells wonderful my dear, I wouldn't want to change anything right now. This one of Hiccup's recipes?"

"No, it's from Sam, actually," Stoick corrected. "Ye know how he is with cookin', especially open fire an' such as we like to do. Thought I'd try this tonight." He took a spatula and removed the meat from the griddle and onto a pair of plates, before spooning out a portion of a thick stew from the pot nearby onto each as well. Then he turned to set them on the table before sliding the griddle off of the hot stove.

A knock at the door set pause to their partaking of the meal however, and Stoick scowled.

"Right in the middle of dinner, of course," he grumbled, marching over and pulling it open. "This had better be important or else…oh, Zipeau! S-sorry fer that response."

The Stenonychosaurus merely gave a huff at the apology, looking around the man toward the table. "It's an inconvenient time, I know that Stoick," he placated, glancing over his shoulder at the weather, "for more reasons than one. I'm afraid I've got news that isn't going to make it any better either."

"Did ye find a match?" Valka asked, coming up to look around Stoick's shoulder again. When Zipeau nodded, conflicting emotions coursed through both of them.

"Once I removed the prints from me, Hawken, and Eret, Tefari was the only other to have touched the radio," the dinosaur explained. "Eret was right, unfortunately; we had a rat come in on his ship."

A low growl more befitting some sort of wild animal formed in Stoick's throat, and he turned momentarily into the house to put covers over the plates on the table and grab his helmet.

"Thornado!" he called. "You and Cloudjumper make sure the kids don't touch the plates! I'll be right back!"

"I'm going with you," Valka stated, grabbing her own staff and coat as she followed Stoick out the door. Thornado and Cloudjumper peered out of the upper floor entryway for a moment so see what was going on, recognizing Zipeau outside the house as the three walked away and closed the door behind them.

Both of the adult dragons missed entirely one silver-highlighted Night Fury slipping out of the skylight window however as the other three young dragons squeezed past them and down the stairs again, demanding their attention.

Stoick took point as the trio traveled down the hill, marching to the docks and zeroing in on Eret's ship; as promised, Grimligh had kept it in port until Zipeau's analysis was done despite the need to be traveling for trade and the urging from his shipmates (which Stoick now saw in an entirely new suspicious light).

As Stoick stepped up onto the plank of the ship, the first mate turned to regard the chief from where he stood in the rain checking over the ropes.

"Stoick! I'd have thought you'd be settin' down for dinner. What brings you to the docks at this time of evening?"

"We found a match, somewhat unfortunately," Stoick toned, and Grimligh's gaze flickered between him and Zipeau as his expression began to darken to mirror theirs.

"Let me guess," he groused in a sharp-edged tone, "I've got a traitor aboard after all. Y'know, I was rather fond of Tsefan too; maybe I'll take pleasure in throttling the man myself. Who is it?"

"The radio had Tefari's prints on it," Zipeau answered, "and other than Hawken and Eret, no one else touched it."

"Tefari?" the sailor exclaimed, eyes widening. "He's been squealing under our noses? Why that little…" Grimligh trailed off for a moment as he turned and flung open the door of the ship's cabin. "Arveni! Kaylor! Find Tefari! And get him out here!"

Muffled noises sounded from below, followed several moments later by shouts and the echoes of a struggle. Grimligh stepped back as the door swung all the way back open, disgorging Arveni and Kaylor and the two of them dragging out by his arms the unmistakably guilty looking fisherman Tefari. When he looked up at those present on deck, disturbed eyes told everyone he definitely knew exactly why they were there, and what he'd done.

"You son of a bitch!" Grimligh snapped, ignoring Zipeau's wince at the language use as he stepped forward again and punched Tefari in the jaw. "You've been working for us for how long, and yet you go and turn on all of us behind our backs like it means nothing! Never mind just Tsefan, but if _anything_ happens to _anyone_ out there looking for him, their blood will be on your head!"

"Turned my back?!" Tefari spat, blood spraying off his lip with the action. "We all made an agreement with the Coalition and _you all_ betrayed that! We had access to protections, trade we'll never get now, and we gave it up and in turn incurred warrants on all our heads! They caught me, threatened me and my life as well as all of yours the last time we docked in Henskfjall! We'd all be dead if I hadn't agreed to what they ordered!"

"All of these excuses you ply are empty; they won't cover your betrayal to us!" Stoick snapped, drawing everyone's attention as he stepped forward to loom over the fisherman. "We have allies across the archipelago that ye could have called upon for help, and trade te match the value of anything Viggo and his cronies could offer if you are really so low as to put money over lives, and you know it. You could have warned us when you returned and we could have arrested the perpetrators, but instead you openly let them get away with it, you let them kidnap one of our own that they now hold over our heads!" He leaned down, making sure the ships-hand fully understood how much trouble he was in. "Tefari, this is high treason against the tribe your crew chose to join; in punishment, you will be spending your days until further notice in the prison cells."

Stoick stood up again, and looked to the men securing the traitor. "If you two will follow me, and bring him," he said lowly, before turning and marching off the ship. As Tefari was dragged by, Valka fell in step behind, glowering at the man. Tefari continued to deflate, shying away from the formidable dragon woman he knew would never forgive him; after all, everyone knew the Haddocks treated the young Night Furies like they were their own blood relatives, and Grandma Valka was extremely protective of her family to say nothing of the Chief himself.

As they made their way back into the village toward the prison caves, another eye was caught by the procession, and Ruffnut sauntered up from the porch of her house, Deborah in her arms staring with her usual toddler-style curiosity at the immobilized man.

"You sniff out the rat, Zipeau?" Ruff called, smirking in knowing.

"More like caught him by the gloves," Zipeau corrected her.

"Figure of speech, jeez. So this guy is why my brother and hubby are out running around the world without me?"

"Yeah, blame him all you want," Grimligh affirmed, having tagged along. "He stabbed us all in the back."

"I see," Ruff mused, walking up in front of Tefari and looking him over before glancing at her daughter. "You know what we do to naughty people, Debbie?"

Debbie giggled and balled one of her hands up, hitting the other with it. Ruff smiled brightly at the reaction. "That's right!" she praised, and her expression darkened. "This!"

She whirled without warning and slammed her fist into Tefari's nose, sending him into a wave of pain as something cracked and Debbie into shrieking laughter at the spectacle.

"Ruffnut!" Stoick reprimanded, trying to keep a disapproving look on his face even as he silently shared her thoughts.

"What?" the blonde female said faux-innocently, bouncing Debbie in her arms as she grinned maniacally. "Come on Chief, don't tell me you didn't want to do it yourself. I'm just saving you the trouble!"

Stoick opened his mouth to reply, but found himself unable to deny her statement. When he didn't respond, Valka sighed and moved up to speak to Ruffnut instead.

"Alright Ruff, while I'll be honest and say I wouldn't mind doing the same as you, no point in hitting a man who's already heading fer the cells. Do you really want to teach your daughter that violent revenge that way is a proper behavior?"

Ruff's face fell as guilt entered her; with marrying Fishlegs and having Debbie, she'd mellowed a fair amount. The mischievous and reckless side of her would never leave of course, but she found thoughts of her family were quickly starting to take over far more of her mind especially the last couple years. She looked down at her daughter, who was still smiling humorously, and returned a wistful grin.

"Okay, Debbie, listen to me carefully," she said. "We only punch Tuffnut, and bad guys when we're fighting, okay?"

"Okay Mama," Debbie chirped back, oblivious to Valka's resigned huff and rolling of eyes. Ruff did look back up to her though, expression twisting again as they all started walking once more.

"So, what about Dagur?" she asked. "I heard they moved him to a nicer cell; we keeping him there?"

"Begrudgingly, yes," Stoick replied gruffly. "I don't want te treat him, personally, but he managed to get through te both Hiccup and Hawken and he has been surprisingly well-behaved, even mellow if I can use that phrase for a character like him." He sighed. "I'm still holding the suspicion that he's trying te plan something under us however."

* * *

Dagur was half-asleep, leaning against the cell wall next to his mattress when he picked up on the near-silent click of a door down the causeway. Vikings generally did not have qualms about slamming doors and making a scene when they moved from space to space, so the prisoner's curiosity was immediately piqued by the prospect of someone who didn't want their presence known here. He didn't move from where he lay though, only cracking one eye open to watch out the front of his cell.

He nearly jolted upright in pure surprise when one of the four remaining young Night Furies poked her head around the corner, the slightly silvery highlights around her eyes and ears catching the dim light almost as well as her luminescent silver-green eyes. She glanced at him, before turning her head around to survey her surroundings. Satisfied after a moment that they were alone, the young dragon moved further forward and sat down at attention in front of the cell door.

"Well, I'm sure you know I'm awake and you clearly came to see me," Dagur drawled, grinning as he sat up more properly as well, "so I won't bother feigning sleep I guess. You're one of the last characters I would have expected to show up here though, what with all that's happened."

"I don't entirely want to be here either, but I think you can give us more than you already have," Shira quipped, eyes narrowing as she scrutinized him. "Are you really trying to be a better person, or are you just trying to get out of here?"

Dagur deflated at the jab from the Night Fury glaring at him. Was it so hard to find at least one person who would take what he said at face level? On the other hand though, he reasoned, two years before he wouldn't have even tried to entertain the notion of holding a civilized conversation with a talking dragon, let alone lending info to help rescue one, so he knew the suspicion was well-earned.

"Alright," he began, "I'll concur that I hadn't done much to invoke trust before I ended up here. But, I can't help much while I'm stuck here in a cell either. Even being able to roam the village under guard might give me some opportunity to actually offer my services more than this." He gestured to his cell, before sighing and looking flatly at the little dragon. "So, they figure out who allowed the kidnappers to take your brother?"

"Yeah I guess, why?"

"Someone new?"

"Got a reason for me to tell you?"

That was definitely a learned trait from multiple members of the family leaking out there; no one else sassed like those whom Shira hung out with the most. Dagur frowned at it pointedly. "Because knowing who it was would help me tell you who they might be connected to," he deadpanned. "And maybe that would help me get ideas on where they might go."

Shira nodded thoughtfully, pursing her lips as she mulled it over. Finally she came to a conclusion.

"It was a guy on Eret's ship, stole a radio some months ago apparently."

A radio; ideas started flowing through the former Berserker chief's mind, but he didn't speak up on this just yet. Instead he glanced off to the side thoughtfully. "This man one of the heads of the crew, or a subordinate?"

"I haven't heard his name before, think he was one of the lower crew members."

"Mmm. So maybe not as loyal, more likely to get roughed up on stops…he would have been approached by one of the Grimborn's higher-ups if he didn't approach them, and they would have avoided the main crew; would have been a bigger port during a longer stay too." Dagur looked back down at Shira. "It was probably on the mainland, and the trip afterward to take your brother away may have been across there, or to a small, hidden island off one of the fjords perhaps. Your friends and family are probably following the likely paths, but best would be an eye and ear on the inside."

Shira's eyes had been relaxing at hearing Dagur's explanation, but they began to narrow again when he said this last point. "Yeah? And who would Viggo trust to let in on stuff like that? It's not like we could send anyone from Berk, or Bog or the other islands for that; someone would eventually recognize them. And us dragons are definitely out."

"You're right," Dagur agreed. "You would send someone that people would know already to avoid that risk altogether, and someone that others might at least assume stood against you guys. Nobody beyond this island knows that I'm trying to change, save the other Riders and Heather –and she doesn't believe me anyway- so Viggo and Ryker might still think I'm a disliker of dragons and even still vengeful toward Berk."

"So you finally admit openly that you are just trying to get out," Shira huffed slightly, before her expression darkened. "At least I might have gotten something from you that we can use before you tried that." She sneered and stood to walk away, believing her escapade was now over.

"Wait!" Dagur yelled urgently, though softly enough to try and still avoid being overheard by anyone else. "I'm not trying to just get out, I promise! I want to impress Heather, and just running away would only make her opinion of me worse."

"If that were possible," Shira snarked.

"I deserve that," Dagur relented. "But I can't fix that opinion of hers while just rotting away in here either. If everyone were fooled, if it looked like I did run away, it might make her hate me more at first, but it would make the Trapper's Coalition trust me more. Leading you guys to wherever your brother is would fix all that though, maybe give me a chance to start over even, if I survive the attempt. And can I ask one last question, please?"

Shira's stink-eye didn't fade, but she let out a resigned breath and turned slightly more to him. "What?" she asked flatly.

"Are those radios you guys use able to be tracked somehow?"

"Uh, not yet, but Zipeau's been planning on making them traceable what with everything that's happened. Why?"

"A means of getting ahold of Berk without things blowing up in my face too soon."

The Night Fury's expression softened slightly at the admonition, but as she opened her mouth to reply to Dagur's answer, the echoing sound of a door slamming open rattled down the corridor. Her eyes snapped wide open, and she glanced frantically around before dashing down the path, disappearing from sight. Moments later, Stoick marched by with Grimligh, Arveni, and Kaylor in tow, the latter two still dragging a ships-hand that Dagur didn't know offhand between them and backed by Valka. Every single one of them held an expression the Berserker knew well at this point, and preferred to never have leveled in his direction again. They marched past, taking the man somewhere much further into the cave, and a cell door opened and slammed shut somewhere.

As the group came back by (minus one), Valka happened to glance at Dagur's cell.

"That the guy who helped mess things up?" he drawled, glancing between her and the corridor they had just come up. "Should've given him my regards with a good fist to the face. Everyone loves a fist to the face, right?"

"Ruffnut already took that privilege," Valka quipped back, slowing behind the group to regard him, "and it's not like we would let you out for that, remember."

"Could bring him up to the bars for me though," Dagur suggested, "but thank Ruff for me then. You people just don't believe me I know, but I am sorry this all happened. If I ever get the chance to get my hands on Viggo…" he trailed off when he noticed his fists clenching and his voice rising, and he took in a deep breath to calm himself down. "Sorry. But do make sure you give him my regards if you find him too."

Valka raised an eyebrow as she began to turn away again. "You were once ready to take us all to our graves, and now the thought of Viggo disturbs you?" she queried with no small sprinkling of suspicion.

"I've held willing conversation with dragons that have managed to get in here," Dagur replied. 'I'm trying to make amends, and I'm seeing where I had issues that I should not have fed. I know I'm crazy, but it's more productive to be the kind of crazy you people are; I just need the chance to prove it."

He looked plaintively at her, but could see the skeptical look in Valka's eyes neve left.

"Perhaps with time," she responded, turning away and leaving Dagur alone in his cell once more.

In return, Dagur looked on, before muttering with no one else to hear his words, "With time, I'll be out to help you overturn that snake of a man I hope," he said softly, staring off toward the door.

* * *

 **A/N-Shorter chapter today (and on time for once, what's with that?), and we're back on Berk. What do you think? I doubt anyone's surprised that young Night Furies are troublemakers.**

 **As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	12. Chapter 11: Kingdom of Beasts

Chapter 11

Kingdom of Beasts

/

 _Welcome to a world run not by man_

 _To a world where the wild reign_

 _This is a realm of treacherous steps_

 _Here the old fears remain_

 _The deceivers fed the wild fire_

 _And trust burned to the ground_

 _The land beside the eastern seas_

 _Divided and its inhabitants bound_

 _Though there may be a chance to fix_

 _The chasm that has opened wide_

 _A tragic miracle may be the key_

 _To stich the wounds inside_

 _-0-_

"Are we there yet?"

"Ask again, Lout, and we'll drop you here and now and you can walk the rest of the way. See you in a couple of weeks!"

"Hey, I just thought this was supposed to be fast!"

"I am holding up nearly a dozen people here, and we're crossing thousands of miles! Do you have any idea how large Asia is?"

"…No?"

"Then shut up! We're almost past Russia now anyway and should be approaching the next outpost shortly; it hasn't been that long."

Most of the Siberian coastline was still locked in polar ice, and the active outposts followed set routes within the continental interior. Active, however, was a bit of a relative term even as temperatures began to warm across the northern hemisphere; I'd spotted all of two caravans on the roads passing below, neither bearing any resemblance to the hunters or anything they might disguise as once we took a closer look. Even in late May, portions of the great northern wilderness had yet to exceed freezing, and great blankets of snow and ice covered the land in between the dense taiga swaths. The Woolly Howls and Blizzard dragons still dominated as the top predators of the land, blending with the white backgrounds and hunting whatever they could find, but as we began heading further east I began to catch glimpses of other species I had never seen in person: Northern Lung dragons and Hackatoos appeared in the rocky hills we passed over. Most of them only gave our disturbance a quick glance when we shot by in a thunderous streak far overhead, more interested in continuing their usual lives than wondering about the odd sight.

Eventually though, snow began to give way to green and greater warmth as we angled south (or, I angled south and dragged everyone else with me) and entered what in my version of earth was Manchuria, the northern temperate portions of the greater Chinese realm. While it still likely had Chinese ties here, we were not familiar with the names of the eastern lands in this world, and prepared ourselves to rely heavily on Fenrir for translation either way. Even if common tongue had spread here, it wasn't necessarily likely to be a dominant language.

"That our stop?" Silas asked, looking ahead of us to where small columns of smoke arose from within a valley near the coast. It was hard to make out at such a distance and in the dwindling evening light how large the settlement was, but there was clearly a port region and paths snaking inland away from it. The sheltered bay it was nestled against would be a perfect marina; this was our next best option on our already two day long search.

"Looks like it," I replied, "and Snotlout, make another comment and I do promise you will walk from here." I glanced over to see Snotlout's open mouth snap shut, and snorted in exasperation. "Why am I not surprised? Okay folks, gonna power down in a second so get ready! Don't really want to enter a foreign village in lightning form, probably a just touch worse for reception than dragons and raptors and company."

I felt the others shift around, those who couldn't fly settling themselves on the backs of those who could, and once the shuffling stopped I slowed us down and rematerialized us back into physical form. The dragons released each other and snapped their wings out, falling into standard formation as I took point, heading for the rising smoke of the village ahead. In passing, I noticed a pair of larger columns further to the south, one larger than the other and emanating from one of the many mountains of the area. Some of the "smoke" fell away from the column in an ominous curtain, prompting me to decide to keep an eye on the mountain; active volcanoes are always a very unpredictable element, and a truly dangerous one at that.

"Het Fenrir, did you ever travel this far east?" I asked, looking back at the wolf who now sat on my back.

"Only once," he said, "and it was well before our encounter with Jezebel. I would expect much to have changed."

"Were they amiable to dragons back then?"

"Very much so, and I doubt all of that could have been altered, but I'd take caution. The relationships men formed with the Alagaesian and Lung dragons were strong; other species here, however, are not so peaceful with people, or wolves for that matter."

"Dragons and wolves have always been somewhat at odds though, like other apex predators," Ember added in.

"More than that though," Fenrir rebutted. "I am not concerned thanks to my size and experience, and that I travel with you, but Asia spawned dragon species specifically adapted to hunt larger predators like wolves, bears, or tigers." He glanced over at Sasha, who sat on Amethyst's back, and the tiger looked back with trepidation at the news. We had our barrier fields, but revelations like that were never warmly received.

Our worries only grew when we crested the hill separating us from the coastal village to find burning buildings and villagers scrambling to protect their stalls and homes from attack. We had been ready for hostilities, but not quite ready for them not to be directed at us upon arrival. Raids of all sorts were common in this less civilized world, though not common enough for us to usually happen upon them in progress, but in this case we had, and it was who the raiders were that drove our concerns home.

From the forest and skies swept furious dragons, fire streaming from their jaws and claws raking after anything that moved. Lung dragons, Mood dragons, scattered Nightmares, and a new species that I had never seen before that split the sky with great birdlike shrieks as it swept in on massive, black-feathered wings, talons bared and beaked snout borne in a wicked snarl swirled like a pack of vultures over a kill. So much for amiable draconic relations, I thought, and any chance we had at being welcomed was likely going up in flames alongside the houses here unless we did something to help.

"Everyone who can't fly, dropping you off here!" I yelled, adrenaline charging my system. "Focus on holding the dragons back and figuring out why they're attacking!"

We dove down and the mammals and raptors leapt off into the tree line, turning on their barriers as they landed while the dragons and riders around me did the same. Then we all took off for the village, ground fighter spreading out as we in the air took up formation to face the bigger dragons on the wing. Ember and Orha faded from view as Amethyst split her spinal crests and began to fluoresce; Fireworm lit her wings and tail on fire, drawing attention to her instead of the village, and I morphed Night Fury and let out a Thunderdrum-level shriek that outmatched all the chaos before us, turning every eye our way.

Flames once directed at the houses below streamed our way now, and my focus turned to a massive Lung dragon that was snaking its way through the air (despite it being a power accessible to me, seeing another dragon flying without wings still struck me as a truly bizarre sight). Its five foot jaws snapped past me, and I turned on a dime and fired, dazing it for a moment to give me a chance to focus. While I could not sway dragons with the capacity true Alphas could, I had developed the ability well enough that I could at least break through to reptiles in thrall so they could talk. Without knowing what was occurring, that was my best guess as to what may have been driving these individuals to madness.

::Focus!:: I roared. ::Why are you attacking this place? Who tells you to do this?::

However, despite my strength of will projecting out, the dragon only shook off its dizziness and attempted to char me. My eyes widened as the fire swept around me, and as it died off I saw its eyes clearly for the first time: crazed slits, not like the mindless absence seen under the sway of Alphas. Rather, despite the pure, unfiltered fury that burned out of them, the spark of sentience itself was missing. It was like the dragon had come down rabid, but I could detect no illness of any kind on it.

"What on earth?" I muttered out of surprise, before my mind snapped back to the more pressing present problem: this dragon was currently bigger than me, and was still trying to kill me. I let loose a splitting roar as its jaws snapped at me again, and tripled in size, slamming my now far larger paws into its chest and sending it tumbling toward the hillside below. Then I twisted midair and fired at the Mood dragon trying to flame Snotlout and Fireworm, dazing it long enough for the Nightmare to whip it across the head with her tail, adding another dragon to the handful crashing into the open streets below us and scattering terrified villagers. I was again surprised, but immensely relieved, to see none of them making moves to finish off the downed reptiles. That should have been my first clue that something bigger was afoot however.

"The hell is wrong with them?" Snotlout yelled, him and Fireworm gliding up next to me as we looked to the black feathered dragon currently set in a dive toward the village. "This isn't even like the raids we used to get from the Red Deaths!"

'I honestly don't know," I admitted, tucking my wings in and all three of us falling into a dive to match our target. "It looks as if they've all just gone insane. Heads up!"

We banked apart as a Grapple Grounder appeared out of nowhere, the sinuous reptile focusing in on Snotlout as I slammed into the larger feathered reptile, my tail morphing to bear a stinger that I drove into its side before it could swivel its head around to gouge me. Venom pulsed and the dragon fell seconds later into full skeletal paralysis.

Surprises weren't done then, and just as I turned my head up to find another dragon the reason the villagers had been simply trying to clear out of the way made itself known. A piercing sound rent the air that made me freeze, half a second before searing pain erupted through my outstretched right wing as something ripped through it. It was the unmistakable crack of a gunshot, report and all, and as I fell from the shock and sudden pain alongside the paralyzed dragon a volley of rounds followed the first, flashes of red and white blinking out from the far edge of the forest and great roars of pain echoing above me following each. Other dragons suddenly reeled from pain as well, or fell from serious wounds inflicted by the unseen projectiles.

I barely turned upright and healed the wound in time to avoid crashing, though not in time to prevent my own victim from hitting hard, and I lit upon the ground next to the dragon I had just brought down as I tried to piece together the insanity that had just erupted. Other dragons began to land as they were hit, or crash if the wounds were bad enough, and sudden howls from the same direction as the gunshots brought my head whipping back up to the hillside. The howls were not draconic, nor were they human imitations; they matched the sounds I'd heard Fenrir let out as he ran into battle.

"The hell did we just fly into?"

Huge gray wolves, none as big as Fenrir but some coming incredibly close, raced out of the forest between the burning houses and leapt at the downed dragons, cornering them and sinking fangs into their sides and necks. Some of the reptiles fought back, and mammalian squeals pierced my ears when one of the canines met an early end, but most of the dragons were too out of their minds to defend themselves properly.

Three of the wolves turned after me, seeing me as no different, but fell short when I morphed again, two swords materializing in my front paws as my tail split into the three stingers of a Triple Stryke, each whipping out in planned bursts to dig into the ground at the wolves' paws. I was now well and truly disturbed by what I was seeing, and made all the dangerous for it.

When one is in the middle of chaos, usually you end up believing that wherever you stood, it could not get any worse. I had reached that point, but clearly someone was having a laugh at my expense and decided to through just one more ingredient into the mix. From further inland more dragon roars sounded, but these I could pick words from and among them were echoing human cries that rose up together, and the wolves and the men around them holding what were undeniably primitive rifles turned to regard this sound with expressions that could only be defined as fury and frustration. From over the hills only just south of where we had flown in, Lung and Alagaesian dragons sailed up in formation as we had, bearing riders holding what looked like blow guns and ornate carved bows. Each wielder brought these to bear on still more of the feral dragons and let loose, darts and non-lethal arrows hitting their marks and bringing more reptiles to earth. Each of these though appeared drugged or asleep rather than injured or dead as was the result of the gunshots of moments before.

A war cry rose up from both sides, and words I definitely didn't recognize were volleyed out as men and animals on each front ran or flew forward, meeting at the far end of the village and exchanging blows, guns and swords brought to bear as claws and fire answered. Some of the new riders leapt off their dragons and moved to stand before both the dragons they'd downed and the ones injured by gunfire, defending them from the wolves sweeping in to fight them off or kill them, and their dragons, if not defending their riders directly, did the same. Now close enough that I could see details through the smoky haze in the air, these dragons wore plates of armor thick enough to protect them from the guns of their adversaries.

It had been only minutes, though it felt like an hour, and now nearly all of the mad dragons were now either leaving the area or had been brought out of the sky thanks to not only our efforts but those of the two forces that had appeared moments behind us, and as the wolves facing me decided that they weren't going to try to bother with a shapeshifting dragon bearing swords, I demorphed fully and turned on my dematerialized com.

"Snotlout, Ember, Amethyst! Land and rally by me now; I know I'm not the only one who's seen this just erupt but we need to figure out what's going on immediately! Sasha, Fenrir, Raptors, to me as well, you're going to be targeted by someone if you haven't already; we just fell into someone else's war."

With the dragon I'd downed laying behind me and not likely to be needing my immediate attention again, I began to march toward where the two sides were facing each other, clashing over the dragons they'd grounded. Moments later I wasn't walking alone, flanked by my family and friends with Ember on my immediate right and Fenrir and Sasha to my left. We had at least one good card to play here, that I hoped to use with enough shock factor to stall the violence: I strode with individuals belonging to races on both sides of the fight ahead of us, and eyes began to turn to us once more, especially to the wolf walking purposefully next to the dragons. New cries of surprise and warning echoed out as the warriors ahead began to stall their fighting, switching their attention to the unknown variable marching in.

"A little space, and cover your ears," I warned, my staff materializing in my hand and taking the place of the swords I'd held moments before. "Fenrir, if needed, get ready to translate; catch enough of what they were saying to make out the language?"

"I believe so."

Close enough now that we were about to step back into the chaos, I leapt forward, staff spinning, and slammed the base to the ground in front of me as massive wings unrolled from my back and my tail coiled menacingly above me. Electricity erupted outward from the staff, tendrils of crackling light flashing between the still warring parties and splitting them apart. If the sudden flashes and risk of burns didn't halt them, the shockwave of thunder that followed a hair's breadth behind certainly did.

As the sound rolled off the hills nearby and bounced back, the howls and roars that had filled the evening moments ago died away to silence as eyes widened and all swung our way.

"Forgive the intrusion of foreign travelers into your midst at such a trying time," I said loudly, trying but unfortunately failing to keep all of my sarcastic edge out of my words and looking to Fenrir as he gave a translation in the language we'd heard when we arrived, "but as this poses a threat to us and our motive here I am forced to stall this and ask what the purpose of such nonsensical violence is?"

Fenrir moved to translate the second half again, but stopped as once of the armored men standing among the wolves held up his hand. "I am impressed by your capacity to speak, wolf, but we all know the common tongue," he snapped in a furious, heavily accented tone. His peat brown eyes swung to fix on me, and narrowed. "Who are you, that you walk with mortal enemies at both your sides and change your form at will as you do?"

"I am Hawken Carlton, servant of the Most High and protector of life as it stands," I replied, equally edged. "These are my friends and family, the Vikings and Dragon Riders of Berk, the Descendants, and Fenrir Asgard, a fellow guardian."

"These terms are unfamiliar," the man said in response without pause, his hand still on his sword. "Are you a spirit, or a god? Why have you come here between us?"

I snorted. "A god? Hardly. I am as human as you, gifted by God with great abilities like most of us here were. We are here searching for a kidnapped family member, and those who took him have contacts here on this coast. I have halted your battle because it is foolish, and threatens us, attacking dragons especially when other dragons are helping to quell…whatever this is." I gestured to the men further off on their own dragons, and then to the downed ferals that filled the streets around us. "We have to find answers, and if this is what we walk into when looking for them I can't leave it be, especially as it threatens the life of the dragon we search for."

Clearly my explanation wasn't quite making sense enough to them, as the man I was addressing eyed me with unhidden skepticism. "I am Tan Qiao," he said. "I am head of the forces of Her Majesty Mononoke, queen of this province and protector of our people. You claim dragons are the ones at risk? We have been forced to fight these beasts for decades as they had targeted us, creatures we once were told were peaceful turning inexplicably into monsters and our efforts to keep safe made only harder by these rebels who ride the beasts and try to protect these mad animals that raid our villages! Our only allies that we have are the wolves we fight with! Tell me why we should take any more care of what you say?"

"The dragons do not attack of their own will!" another furious voice yelled out. Shuffling and shouts of protest rose up as a great green-tinted Alagaesian dragon approached. He stood out from the rest, covered entirely rather than partially in downy feathers and his blocky head bearing blunted, exposed lower fangs. His rider slid off and removed his helmet as he continued, his blue eyes blazing with anger at Qiao.

"This was never an issue until a few decades past, you know this!" he shouted. "The same time that your queen's new 'allies' arrived, oh so coincidentally. Something is doing this to them; dragons do not simply go mad for no reason, especially in a manner to make them even attack their fellow dragons!"

"It appears as clearly to me now as it has for years that they are beginning to revert back to their primal ways," Tan Qiao spat back, turning away from me to argue with the rider. "They were savage beasts once eons ago, they return to that state now, but you are to close you your precious scaly slime bags to see it through that blindness!"

"You are the one who's blind here, working with the predators that even turn on their own if they are weak! They're the primitive origins of dogs, not even dogs themselves; even a dog prodded wrong will turn on its owner, but a dragon in its right mind never will its rider!"

"Oh, then do try, and fail again, to explain"-

"Oh, shut _up_ already!" Amethyst exploded, wings hooding as she stepped forward. Noticing the wide eyes from both sides, she snorted. "Oh good, you're not used to talking dragons either; maybe that will help me here and keep your mouths shut for a moment! The riders are right, we don't turn on our companions when of our own mind, and those dragons even under the influence of an Alpha do not wildly attack other dragons. This is unnatural, but you are too busy throwing blames and fighting each other to investigate answers to this mess so it just continues and snowballs down the hill, doesn't it? We might be foreigners here, but on top of searching for my son it is our job as guardians to protect those in danger, so this will fall under our jurisdiction to end this."

"Qiao won't be willing to listen; he does nothing but follow orders," the rider jabbed, turning back to his dragon with finality and getting back on. "You're wrong about us not having tried to find answers, but if you actually think you can help, we might be willing to listen after you try to change their minds. For now though, we are taking these injured away from here before the filthy wolf warriors try to kill any more of them."

Slipping his helmet back on, he yelled out in the language we'd first heard, "Shōují lóng bìng cǎiqǔ kōngqì (Gather the dragons and take to the air)!" A flurry of wings answered, the dragons sweeping out and picking up the downed reptiles before retreating to the east. My eyes lingered on the great black feathered one I had brought down.

"I'll admit I am unfamiliar with that species; you know it Fenrir?" I queried, glancing at the wolf. Fenrir followed my gaze, but before he could reply Tan Qiao answered instead.

"Hēi niǎo sǐwáng; in the common tongue they refer to them as Shadehawks," he muttered bitterly. "Vicious, destructive creatures; they have high tempers even before they turn feral. It sickens me that they save even those."

"And who are you to judge what life is any more or less valuable than any other?" Rachel quipped, tail stiffening behind her. "Even the most dangerous animals serve a purpose beyond target practice for angered men."

Tan Qiao did not answer the question, instead simply turning his eyes to her mistrustingly. "You know nothing of this fight; you halted one battle, maybe saved my men a handful of injuries, so I stand you only for that. And what kind of dragon are you?"

Rachel laughed. "Oh no, I am not a dragon; I and my siblings here are Metaraptors, a dinosaur. We are of ancient class of reptile that no longer exists unless you consider birds a part of our lineage. We are Descendants, like the tiger and two of the dragons here, relatives of Hawken."

"Relatives," Qiao mused, looking at me with an unreadable expression.

"By life force, not blood," I said. "It's a story I won't go into now because it won't make much sense to someone outside our circles. But we are wasting time and only angering you more by standing around here; we must find my nephew, and whatever this is that we fell into here needs to end." Relaxing slightly, my wings and tail faded as I leaned on my staff. "You said that you serve a queen that rules this area, so if you would be so kind as to point us in her direction and that of the allies the riders mentioned that they so clearly suspect it would be appreciated. Perhaps they have the answers we're looking for and a place we can start, so we can stop arguing and make progress instead; certainly, I'd like to know how this partnership of yours with the wolves came about as that would help. I guarantee that it's in your best interest to work with us, and hopefully eventually with dragons as those riders do rather than make things worse for both sides. I come from near an island where people fought dragons for three centuries, and it was not the pleasant existence they have now."

Maybe it was my returning fully to a less threatening state, or the unspoken knowledge that he knew I was capable of a great deal and not going to be slowed down by a no; either way, despite his overflowing suspicion of us Tan Qiao nodded to those under his command as an order to lower any weapons that were still raised. Most of the wolves followed suit (no longer such a surprising thing), standing passively next to the men, but one gave us a low growl still. He silenced when Fenrir leveled his own piercing glare at the dissident, bearing far larger, sharper teeth.

"Let me be clear to you foreigners, stubborn as you clearly are," Qiao toned warningly. "I am agreeing to this only because I do not yet know what you are fully capable of, and do not wish to find out, unless it does somehow magically solve this problem. I do not trust dragons, or their allies, even if they are wolves." He spoke this as he looked pointedly at Fenrir. "Perhaps Her Majesty will understand you better and turn you away properly to leave us alone, or better yet you'll see the foolishness of your own path."

"Not likely; you're speaking to someone who can transform into and converse with all sapient dragons, and I've seen worse than anything you might present," I leveled back.

Tan Qiao frowned further, but did not respond to this. Instead, he turned, barking out orders in Mandarin (I had finally placed what exactly the language was, even though I couldn't understand a word) to several men who moved to begin helping the village start repairing the damage it had suffered, before pointing to an overgrown path up the side of the valley.

"Follow me, and if you do not wish me to lead you astray, remain unspoken until Her Majesty addresses you."

I nodded tersely, but could not help but smirk. _I would smell the lie on you before you got three steps in with it,_ I though silently, falling in line behind the general and with the others filing in behind me. They all discretely left their barriers on, just in case things took a turn for the worse and went south again; after the last fifteen minutes, anything was possible.

As the sun vanished fully beyond the horizon, the forest plunged into darkness. The echoes of distant animal cries seeped in through the surrounding trees, and the men we accompanied lit torches as the wolves flanked the path. I avoided looking directly at the lights, my eyes already piercing the night like it wasn't there and picking up little details about my surroundings. Every time another distant cry went up the wolves' ears perked and they almost imperceptibly wilted and tucked their tails. The men similarly tensed, hands moving toward their guns and swords.

::They're scared of something,:: I growled at low pitch to Amethyst, ::and it's more than the feral dragons.::

::I hope you're not just now noticing they haven't exactly spelled out the whole story to us,:: she quipped back, before falling back into observant silence. I swept my eyes along the tree line, hoping to pick up some hint of the secret hiding in the woods, but whatever it was wasn't approaching anywhere near close enough to see; with a party as large as ours though, that probably wasn't surprising.

We crested the hill and descended into the next valley over, and the glow beneath the plumes of smoke further south towered over us. The smaller was definitely anthropogenic, rhythmic billows and lulls in the cloud of soot pumping upward as something worked away beneath. Until I had the opportunity to look for myself what caused it though, I was at a loss as to the identity of the source, but I had a feeling it was probably linked to the surprisingly advanced weapons that were being carried around us. Ahead, firelight in the form of more flickering torches, braziers, and open pits began to flicker into view, shining through the thinning trees. Reflecting that light, I spotted first the tops of an ornately built palace; laced golden trims lined roofs of patterned green shingles.

The closer we approached, the more elaborate the structure became though. Towering mahogany walls appeared, overhangs and walkways supported by maroon and red shaded pillars trimmed with gold, and great carved murals were etched into the wood and metal sidings depicting vicious battles, great birds and majestic animals, and intricate designs with words in letter that I could not read forming borders around each.

Most prominent of all though, just like among the people we were walking with, were the wolves. They ran at the sides and even ahead of the men in the battle scenes, stared out solitarily from the almost three-dimensional forest images, and stood proudly as great sculptures guarding door fronts and the gate posts of the palace. Their living counterparts prowled the edges of the palace grounds and surrounding buildings, and as we approached they began to line the road and steps, more than a wild pack ever would coordinate and staring us down like the guards I surmised they had to be.

Tan Qiao approached the front door of the palace's outer wall and gave a great rap to the wood. Seconds later a slot appeared, and foreign words were exchanged, before the doors creaked and began to swing open outward. Qiao looked to us and nodded his head for us to follow, leading our group into a fire-lit courtyard lined with plants blooming in profusion, tiled marble grounds, and both human and canid guards standing in all corners. Qiao stopped us in the middle, halfway across from the steps leading up to the palace proper as he continued forward.

"Wait here, and I will inquire if Her Majesty will see you," he said, before heading up the steps and disappearing within the palace, doors closing with an ominous finality.

::I am feeling rather out of touch with the different species affinities here,:: Sasha commented dryly, though wisely still low enough only we could hear him, on the off chance anyone here understood Dragonese or thought we were planning behind their backs. ::No wonder they are so hostile toward dragons; maybe that triggered something to make them feral?::

::Not a chance; dragons would go feral wherever they encountered high numbers of wolves and their relatives in that case,:: Fireworm disagreed. ::We would have heard about it by now from the traders and merchants that come to Berk.::

Further conversation halted when the palace doors swung open once more, and we all tensed before Tan Qiao reappeared, standing up tall as he halted at the top of the steps.

"We request your respect in the presence of Her Majesty Mononoke Xinxiang, queen of the Northern Dynasty," he bellowed loudly, before sweeping away to the side and standing at attention. Around us, the guards knelt low to the ground, and the wolves too dipped their noses to the earth in a low bow. I looked to the questioning gazes of my friends, but shook my head ever so slightly. Respect we might show, but we wouldn't be bowing like subjects.

The doors swung open a third time, and our eyes fixed beyond the guards pulling them wide to the moving shadows within. The first figure to appear was another wolf, a female that drew stifled gasps from each of us. She was easily twice even Fenrir's size, standing high enough to look down at me when face to face, her fur a uniform shining silver that reflected the nearby flames save for the darker highlights that traced her nose, brows, and ears, and similarly piercing silver eyes stared at us with an intelligence that I was almost caught off guard by. Almost; I had too many sapient animal friends and family now to be shocked by such a thing anymore.

Just behind the wolf strode another regal figure, a woman easily over six feet tall with shining braided black hair that fell down over her left shoulder, framing her shaped pale face and brown eyes and laying across a wrapped silk dress decorated with floral patterns of violet, green, red, and silver. She carried herself with an air of power, head held high and her arms stiff and moved at her sides with purpose in every swing. Her build too, though oriental, did not match those of the soldiers and villagers we had encountered; they were clearly Chinese, but she looked foreign even still. What caught my eye the most however was the ornate gun barrel that peeked out behind her shoulders, expertly crafted and burned at the mouth of the barrel indicating quite regular use. She knew how to wield it just as well as wear it.

I stepped forward and leaned down slightly in a respectful bow, and out of the corner of my eyes watched to make sure everyone else followed suit. Luckily, even Snotlout stayed quieter than I expected and tipped his head with the rest of us. "Salutations to you, Queen Mononoke," I began, looking back up to the woman before us. "I apologize for the intrusion and what inconvenience it causes for this region, but we do so out of our own desperate needs and the duties we carry for the welfare of others."

A curt reply cut me off before I could continue, but it did not originate from the woman. Instead, all eyes snapped to the magnificent silver wolf beside her, who came down a step to be more level with us. "It is wise to address the queen herself if attempting to speak with her, foreigner," she said pointedly, her voice as silk as her appearance, before a slightly amused smile grew along her muzzle. "However, I cannot necessarily fault you; I have never heard of another kingdom under the rule of any other race than man. A pity, I think."

"You are Mononoke?" Ember asked, tilting her head in mild surprise.

Mononoke nodded. "I am. The woman that stands with me is my ally, Lady Ashira Tatsikara from the islands to the east. I am Mononoke, Queen of China, Goddess of the Northern Forests, and protector of this dynasty."

"Goddess?" Snotlout suddenly blurted, before snickering. "You're a wolf!"

"You dare disrespect me, stranger?" Mononoke snarled, her teeth bared as her hackles raised, and she stared down the Viking. Around us, weapons came unsheathed and the other wolves crouched low with equally bared fangs as they prepared to act for their leader.

Snotlout was unbidden, and stood just far enough away from the others that we couldn't discretely smack him. "Disrespect?" he scoffed. "Nah, I just call 'em as I see 'em. I know a bunch of people who are even more powerful than the guys they used to call gods, and who got pissed if you tried to tell them they were one. Not to mention nowadays I can only think of one God who really fits that mark Gotta ask though, why do you say you're one?"

He yelped when I finally did reach back and thunked him over the helmet with the end of my staff, and yelped again when Fireworm followed my lead and smacked him with her tail. My eyes then turned back to Mononoke and I awaited her response to Snotlout's question, hoping she'd answer rather than just react.

The wolf had lost her snarl, but not the hard look in her eyes. "The creatures of these lands, all save for those infernal dragons that now raid us, answer to me at my slightest inquest," she replied harshly. "The ground turns fertile where I will it, and the precious minerals of the earth reveal themselves to me. No weapon has ever laid harm to my pelt, and none win against me in battle. Would you still question?"

"I see a gifted soul that was corrupted by greed," Amethyst quipped, sitting up tall so as to lift her head above the wolf's. "If we can believe what you say, you have great powers, but not more so than others we know. I can respect if you help the people of this land somehow, but you harm another race without due cause as well and set yourself above the rest around here; forgive us if we carry suspicion thereby."

"And you dragons walk with a tiger and a kin of my own, which bought you just enough respect to prevent me from calling for your deaths when my general informed me of your presence and interference with our defense of the villages here," Mononoke answered in turn. "Your kind has brought us immeasurable grief in the past, so if I am vexed I may yet request it. You may be powerful, but not even the great stone-scaled dragons can withstand bullets."

"We can, Mononoke," I said, picking up my staff and spinning it. "Look at both sides here, volleying insults back and forth and getting nowhere; we have no answers and you have no idea what we're capable of, or can offer, so I think it would be better if some explanation is provided before we all start laying blame again. Sound good?

"We come from far to the west, searching for a kidnapped kin taken by trappers who have a long reach, and happened upon the village just to the north of here, thinking it another coastal outpost, when the raid I assume you are well aware of occurred. Whatever it is that's causing those dragons to turn in such a manner has never been seen by us before, and it not only poses a risk to you, and us alongside the dragon we are looking for, but possibly a greater threat if whatever the cause is spreads. If you can call off your men and wolves or at least give us information about this, we may be able to help your struggle while we attempt to end ours."

Mononoke went silent, before tilting her head and stepping closer, scowl still present. "I was told something similar by the Alagaesian riders that now assail my forces during the raids," she said lowly. "When these incidents first began many years ago, they asked me to give them a chance to find the cause of this curse, to let them deal with the feral beasts non-lethally so neither side would be further angered. I lent my services to them as we had once been trading allies, men and animals of the forest to the searches even."

She paused, and then after glancing around the courtyard, fixed me with a hard glare. "That was over twenty-five years ago, foreigner," she bit off. "The dragons that turned, the ones they tranquilized or that we captured, never got better. The greatest healers and soothsayers in my kingdom could do nothing, no magician or sorcerer could find a spell to break. The dragons those riders trapped began escaping their holds when there were too many and came back to terrorize us alongside new savages, and to protect the villages I gave the orders to my men and wolves to kill them if necessary. The riders became furious at me for this and began to attack my forces in turn, and only months later I gained the alliance of Lady Ashira and her advanced metal workers to fight back.

"This existence has only slowly escalated since, and very recently the numbers of savage dragons and the frequency of their attacks have skyrocketed, forcing all of us to take the most drastic measures and turn offensive. The riders responded similarly, and I know without doubt they plan to attack in full force eventually, a war that both of us cannot survive.

"So," she said in a painfully skeptical tone, coming further down the steps to look me directly in the eyes, "I have heard your plea before. What would make you different, and why should I believe you when two and a half decades ago I made that mistake and let suffering last? The last time it happened at this fight's start, I gained enemies I could have done without, and I do not wish to end up the same with you."

"You should not give them any chance," Lady Ashira quipped. "We have enough threats presently without more dragon lovers meddling."

"I will at least let this one speak his piece," Mononoke answered, her eyes never wavering from mine. "I am strict with my rule, but not without reason for it."

"Wise, and in that I hope your mind will yet be changed on several perspectives," I said, bringing both hands to rest on top of my staff. "You heard my companions question your claim of being a goddess; I am one of several reasons why. My name is Hawken Carlton, and I am not originally even an inhabitant of this earth but I have become well familiar with it. When I came here, I was given gifts as well, the reason why I oversee the welfare of people and dragons alike alongside my friends. Your general saw a glimpse of what I can do."

Mononoke's gaze flickered to Tan Qiao, though her ears stayed trained on me. When the man nodded slightly and gestured to the dragons with me, she met my gaze again, eyes narrowed in cautious curiosity.

I smirked, and let a pair of wide, feathered wings unfurl, prompting the wolf to step back slightly as her eyes widened. "I have the gifts of the dragons themselves," I continued, "their forms, their abilities, etcetera. I can channel in part some of the greatest forces of nature because of that, and I have traveled half the earth. I don't work alone as many of my companions are gifted themselves, and each of us has our own abilities which give us the means to interpret and fix things that most can't. We know intimately how dragons work, I know the properties of disease, toxins, and the like; I can also read others so I know what to look for if someone is responsible for this rather than something natural. And, if you refuse to help us then very well, we shall work on our own to the ends we're trying to fix, but I warn you that if you attempt to harm us, we will escape unscathed and I can produce weapons that can harm even those who can't be touched by guns or Damascus blades."

"A threat is not a wise way to gain my trust or assistance," Mononoke flatly warned back.

I shook my head and folded my wings. "Not a threat; we don't attack unless first provoked. It is advice and a promise for the worst case should such a thing come to pass. I leave the decision to you still."

Stepping back to stand next to Ember and Amethyst, I looked behind Mononoke to Ashira. Her glare was deep, and I knew that if she had the say in this then we would have already been deflecting bullets. She did not like dragons in the least, and I knew that it was likely either I would be investigating her, or I would be sending Ember or Sasha to do so.

Mononoke remained silent, setting down on the steps with her incredibly long tail wrapped around her paws. Her eyes flickered between us, Tan Qiao, and the ground as she seemed to ponder the options before her.

After several minutes the wolf's head snapped back up to meet my gaze. "Know that if I help you I will do so on my own terms, and if you turn against me I will see it as war," she said.

"As would be reasonable," I agreed.

She nodded and continued. "Perhaps a mediator will be able to converse more peacefully with the Alagaesian riders than one of my own; you may be able to find out what they intend, and perhaps pacify them as I know my forces would simply be attacked. I have never figured out where the first feral dragons came from so I cannot tell you the source, but perhaps with your skills you may be able to seek that out better. If you can find a cure, you will have my alliance. And if you are searching for a dragon taken by trappers, I know they come into the harbors around here on occasion and there is a larger outpost to the south, beyond the settlements of my allies from the east. If your quarry is there however, they may know you, so to show my acceptance of your help I can send my trusted men to pass interest in your dragon. What species was taken?"

"A Night Fury, my son," Amethyst responded curtly.

Mononoke gave her a look of surprise, before nodding. "I see. Then I shall pass on to them such to search for. Lastly, so that you may both attempt to seek answers here and that you may be where I can know of your presence, I shall give you accommodations in the city. It is late so you may go there now. Lairei will escort you." Turning up her snout, the wolf gave a howling bark, and another canine appeared through a nearby door in the palace wall. He was a darker color, shades of brown and deep gray mottling his fur and equally sienna eyes flickering around with the higher intelligence I had seen in some of the other wolves, but not the level of Mononoke herself. He looked up at us expectantly and at Mononoke's nod I turned to follow the wolf, the others filing in slowly behind me.

As the doors of the palace shut behind us again, I turned one last time to the wolf ruler. "As this is dealt with, your Majesty," I began, "I hope that I may yet speak with you concerning your gifts. You are wise of a great deal, but there is also much that you are currently blind to. I intend to shed light on that."

"We shall see, Hawken," Mononoke replied steadily, and the doors closed.

Lairei led us a short distance away to a large multi-roomed house. While the guards that stood nearby brought up blades when we approached, a growl from the wolf had them nodding and stepping away, keeping watch on the palace but providing us with some privacy. Lairei stopped at the door, looked to us and huffed with some semblance of finality, before turning and walking past us to return to the palace. With some amusement, I turned away from him and opened the doors of the house, stepping inside to the central connecting room.

"Mononoke was not lying when she said she influences animals, and in a similar manner I think to Alpha dragons," Fenrir said once we were all inside. "I felt a slight pulling sensation near her."

"Same," Sasha grumbled. "It was weird."

Fenrir nodded. "I would not recommend either of us be alone around her; though I doubt she could sway gifted individuals or Descendants like other animals, it's best we stay with at least one of you in case she has ulterior motives yet."

"Okay, I'll stick with Sasha like usual then," Teshra chirped, flapping over and landing on the tiger's head, eliciting chuckles from the rest of us.

"I will keep with Fenrir when I can," I said, "along with Natasha I think for daily split ups if we need to. We'll pay a visit to the dragon riders that have the other side of the story tomorrow and find out what they believe in terms of all this, and then try and go from there. If the Coalition brought Tsefan here, hiding him amongst ferals and amidst a war over such would be a sure way of slowing us down, and maybe they even have answers of their own for this."

"I hope so," Amethyst said quietly. "The long it takes the worse off he could be, and I know he must be terrified at all this happening."

"Don't worry Amethyst," Orha said softly, he and Ember walking up to the Night Fury and the latter laying a hand on her neck. "We won't stop looking until we find him, and when we do, we'll be sure to give Viggo everything he's earned for this, no question."

* * *

 **A/N- There's a bit of a mess of facts and fiction to be sorted out here...and that's gonna take a while when nobody agrees on what's going on. Think the trappers took Tsefan here?**

 **As always I would love to hear your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews! And, make sure to check out the Book of Dragons as there has been a new entry posted and more will be on the way! Sketches for these can be found in the Two Worlds Collide group on FB as well; always recommended to take a look at those, as I do alter the dragons from the TV series more often than not.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	13. Chapter 12: Enemy of My Enemy

Chapter 12

Enemy of My Enemy

/

 _We've all heard that old line_

 _The one about making friends in the face of trial_

 _It's romanticized that perfect notion_

 _That a shared hardship breeds an allied bond_

 _The saddest part is that it's not that way_

 _Rather one common goal is just a note_

 _The truth is, your enemy's foe may well be yours as well_

 _Their eyes with only conflict shown_

 _Take every chance with a touch of caution_

 _Diplomacy hand in hand with your sword_

 _You'd best watch your back with every step_

 _For the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend_

 _-0-_

It took a while for the slowly strengthening rays of sunlight to finally break through both the nearby trees and the walls of the tent, illuminating the interior in a soft golden glow, but eventually it could not be denied that dawn had arrived. For several minutes more though the pair of occupants failed to move, too content in their sleeping bags to try and stir especially when they had both learned the morning before that not everyone in the party was quite as early risers as they were.

Or, more accurately, not as early risers as one lapine in particular was; the other occupant of the tent typically needed much encouragement to so much as crack open his eyes before mid-morning had passed. All the worse, both their sleeping bags were more comfortable than most mattresses they were used to using, making the arousal of occupant one far slower than usual and the second a nigh impossibility short of an emergency.

Furry black-tipped ears began twitching and rising up with the increasing light and warmth though, following the sounds of birds and other calling animals outside as Judy, as always, awoke first. Not hearing movement of either dragons, people, or the other assorted animals in their party anywhere outside the tent, she decided she was content to simply enjoy her position for several moments longer before slowly rolling over and cracking her eyes open…

…only to clap her hands over her mouth to stifle an undignified squeak of surprise, followed by a horrified cringe.

While she and Nick had shared a house near Cair Paravel for well over a year and a half and had gotten used to each other's usual morning states of undress (several hundred years of anthropogenic style development and living around people had brought with it a sense of modesty to most, though not all, of the Narnian animal lineages, save the less bipedally developed families like that of Reepicheep), both of them still had their limits on what was generally acceptable, and nighttime restlessness was very much threatening that line now. In his sleep, Nick had somehow ended up worming his way almost completely out of his bag, and in the process his undershorts had begun traveling downward as they stayed with the bag. He was, luckily, facing away from Judy, and the garment had pulled his tail down with it, saving him temporarily from further undignified embarrassment, but he would have to wake up eventually to actually fix the problem at hand. That, and the process of getting him there, was rife with possible issues that at best would leave Nick blushing like a fool (or depending on how he felt that morning teasing his partner mercilessly about her view), and at worst possibly having both mammals cringing inside their sleeping bags unable to look at each other.

Realizing suddenly that she had been staring for several seconds longer than was necessary (or proper), Judy winced and closed her eyes, turning her head away before taking in a steeling breath. "Nick," she said quietly, but with urgency. "Nick, please wake up!"

Nothing but the continued steady breathing of the reynard greeted her.

"Oh come on, your ears aren't as big as mine but I know you can hear me!"

The fox still did not respond directly, but the tip of his tail did happen to flick free of the sleeping bag, and as it did so the soft hairs flickered over Judy's exposed nose. Her eyes flew open.

"Ah! Ugh, really –grrk, oh no…ha, ha, HA-CHZZT! NICK!"

At her exasperated scream Nick finally jolted awake, leaning up slightly on his elbow as he groggily blinked the sleep out of his eyes, bringing the tannish canvas of the tent into focus.

"Huh, wha- Carrots?" he said with a slight slur, beginning to roll himself over to look where she lay. "What's going"-

"GAH! No, don't turn around!"

The vulpine froze, eyes widening and alertness returning to his mind as confusion and concern crept in. Was there something in the tent? A spider? Something on him?!

"Uh…why not?" he asked carefully, turning only his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. Noticing her wide-eyed grimace and reddening blush creeping up her face and ears brought only further befuddlement.

"Look down," she said tersely, very obviously making a show of averting her eyes from him again. Nick slowly did as she commanded, beginning to grow fearful of what he'd find. It didn't take long to discover the source of her discomfort, and everything fell in place, save for his slightly misplaced underwear.

"Gah!" he exclaimed, rapidly yanking up the article of clothing before burrowing himself back inside his sleeping bag, blushing wildly. His mind had not yet started functioning well enough to play off the scenario coolly, so he defaulted to an awkward panic. And, while he had been a red fox before, he was certain that he would now fit under the description of the color fuchsia.

"I'm just, uh, going to stay in here for a while, nice and dark and I can't see anything," he rambled timidly, only just starting to process the fiasco that had just occurred. "You get dressed and I'll, uh, meet you outside sometime later. Maybe tomorrow."

Now that the impending catastrophe was partially averted, Judy found herself growing slightly amused at his reaction, and half surprised that he had not just rolled into joking about the situation. She chalked it up to their very new surroundings and the early state of the morning though, and decided to just be glad for it as she turned to begin putting on her clothes; it was too early to deal with a flirtatiously teasing fox anyway. They hadn't been able to bring very many changes of outfits, but luckily found out the day before that they wouldn't necessarily have to survive in dirty clothes for more than a couple days at worst. As Hiccup had demonstrated, all they needed was a quick wash in some local creek and then to be laid out on Meatlug's back for a bit, and they'd be toasty dry and good as new.

As sleep wore off of him Nick began to recover, not staying flustered for long. With any chance of further shuteye now banished, he knew being embarrassed and trying to hide from it was somewhat pointless (they were still animals after all, even if far more modest than most), and so a new set of ideas began running through his mind.

 _What the heck, not like I could make it worse for myself in the long run,_ he reasoned, _and making the bunny turn pink is worth it, right?_

Just as Judy was beginning to slip her shirt on and prepare to don her new armor outfit (she couldn't believe just how light and comfortable the suits were despite their strength), she caught in her peripheral vision the chocolate and red ears of her partner pop back out of the other sleeping bag as Nick resurfaced, rummaging around with one hand for his own clothes as he turned to eye the mostly dressed lagomorph.

"So, Carrots, I noticed you weren't actually looking away the whole time earlier," the fox mused, insufferable grin reappearing as he found his shirt and began pulling it on.

Judy froze, groan beginning to form already as she deduced what was coming. So much for avoiding sarcasm at both their expenses apparently. Sure enough:

"You enjoy having a peep show there or something? Never took you for that kind of mammal, but I guess everyone has their secrets."

"Oh my g- Nick, you perverted fox!"

"Well, you're not denying it outright, so I guess that means"-

"Would you hush! No, I don't get a kick out of seeing you in such an undignified fashion, and you should keep your backside covered in company! It'd be enough to scare anyone off."

"Humph, undignified; well, that might be true, but it's not like I don't still look good even then."

Judy couldn't help but level a stink-eye at him. "You should stuff your ego back into the sleeping bag."

"Aw, trying to convince me I'm not handsome and attractive? You know that's a lost cause; I mean, just look at that shade of red there! It looks like you're trying to imitate your favorite fox, which I have to say kind of undermines your credibility."

Judy groaned and pulled her ears down over her eyes, hiding the spots where the blush was most noticeable. "Quit twisting my words on me!" she snapped. "You're my best friend, not a figure model to ogle; now get dressed already and shut it! Ugh, I wonder if Holly would mind sharing her tent…"

"Oh, how you wound me Fluff!" Nick exclaimed in faux agony, clutching his chest dramatically and falling against his bag. "A glimpse of me a touch more au natural and you can't even stand to go camping with your best buddy anymore; I must certainly be too good for you then!"

"Not so good that I can't kick you right through the tent wall, you narcissistic"-

"And what do we have going on over here?" a faux sweet, almost chuckling voice interrupted outside the tent, causing Judy to yelp and Nick's ears to pop straight up, though his lidded smirk barely twitched. So engrossed in their "argument" were they, that neither of them, somehow, had heard Holly's footsteps approaching.

"So quiet all of a sudden," Holly continued, and now they could not only hear, but practically feel the smirk the teenager was wearing in her voice. "Is everything okaaaayyy?"

"Yep!"

"Nope!"

Fox and rabbit answered simultaneously and disparately, only fueling Holly's amusement.

"Judy just can't stand the sight of me anymore, Holly!" Nick whined. "I'm to be cast away like nothing."

"I can stand you, just not an indecent you," Judy snapped back. "Now shut it!"

"Gee Judy, this is a serious mission we're on here, not a pastime for partying in your tent," Holly mused, earning an indignant and impressively feral growl from the rabbit.

"Don't encourage him!" Judy yelled. "Uh, can I please stay with you tonight or something?"

"Sorry, one-person tent and Nara kind of takes up the extra space."

"Wait, how does she even manage to fit in –oh, never mind." With a huff, the now fully dressed rabbit turned to glare one last time at the smirking almost-dressed canine nearby. "Drop the subject; situation's over and if I hear one more word I will drag you to a run through the ice caves back home with me when we return and I'll get Snarlov to enforce it."

Nick's smirk dropped slightly. "Renneman? Come on, you wouldn't do that to him," he dismissed.

"He's a polar bear, he'll be just fine in there. If that's not enough, maybe I'll tell Holly and the rest about that one special collection you have back home."

Now the smirk disappeared completely. "You wouldn't."

"I don't know, sounds like a fair trade for trying to label me as a peepshow sneak, wouldn't you agree?"

"…"

"It's called a hustle sweetheart. Boom."

"Aw come on, you can tell me anyway right?" Holly urged, now more than curious to find out what this secret of Nick's was.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Personal info, not to be shared!"

"I won't tell the others."

"I trust that as far as I can throw Meatlug."

"Won't tell the others what?" Delta asked, suddenly showing up nearby as well as the rest of the group began to emerge from their tents.

Nick grimaced inside and glared at Judy. "Not a word, and I'll make that radish salad that you like so much next chance we get, okay?"

Judy hummed, drumming her fingers on her chin as she looked off to the side thoughtfully. Finally she shrugged. "Alright, deal."

"You can't just leave us hanging now that we know he's got something to hide!" Holly complained outside.

"Sorry, no can do," Judy chimed back cheerily, earning a harrumph.

"Fine. I'll find out eventually."

* * *

"So how long do you think it'll be before she stops ignoring him?" Hiccup wondered, glancing off to his right and behind him. Unlike days prior, Judy was riding on Embron, though Nick was still sitting on Nara behind Holly again, and the rabbit had somehow convinced the Nightmare to stay rather pointedly distant from the Nadder.

Hiccup turned the other way to regard Astrid questioningly, and received little more than a shrug. "Likely no longer than it takes to reach the island," she replied, "but couldn't say. Just because I'm a female doesn't mean I know how Judy works, but I wouldn't worry about it too much though."

"Why not?"

"Hiccup, I know you're not that dense. Clearly they quibble like that regularly, and they're still thicker than thieves together despite."

"More than that," Toothless added in, the Night Fury smirking as he spoke.

Hiccup cocked an eyebrow as he looked down at his dragon. "What do you mean?"

"I think they like each other."

His rider couldn't help but snort. "Gee, that would make Hawken happy wouldn't it?" he snickered. "I think you're reading into things a little much though."

"Why, are mammal pheromones that different from dragon ones? They're still oblivious to it, but"-

"Yeah, you might still be reading a bit too much into it there, Toothless," Astrid admonished. "I'd bet they are different enough, and besides, that's something they should figure out themselves if it is so. Don't mention anything like that to them, alright?"

Toothless looked like he was going to say more, but was quieted when a metal gun barrel tapped him on the temple. "Keep yer mouth shut and yer nose out o' their business," Jake warned. "After all, they might not be around here long and we don't want to ostracize allies by making them uncomfortable."

"Or friends," Hiccup agreed.

"Guys! Guys!"

The exclamation ended the possibility of further talk on the matter and drew their attention up to Fishlegs, who was buzzing toward them rapidly on Meatlug. "The island's just ahead!" he blurted. "We should be able to see it shortly; what's the plan?"

Hiccup peered forward through the cloudy haze that tinted the sky, mind dropping the previous topic readily as he started mulling over their options. If this was just a stopping point for the hunters, it would be just a quick search over the island. If it was a base…they certainly didn't want to approach from head-on and fully visible either.

"Spread out so we're not immediately pinpointed as a group," he ordered. "Use the coms to keep in touch and report what you see; all riders stay low to your dragons so that you don't leave a profile and riding Descendants shrink down for the same reason. Clear?"

"Clear!" everyone answered.

"Good," Hiccup said. "Once we get some feedback on layout we'll go from there."

As Fishlegs had claimed, the island did come into view through the haze shortly, and just as soon Hiccup realized why the haze was so thick. It wasn't just humidity or clouds; rather, from one end of the spit of land a towering cone rose up, smoke and ash wafting from the peak and the slightest red glow emanating from the mouth. Down one side of the volcano, a thin red line snaked across the flank, steaming and oozing before eventually fading to black as it fell off the island's edge and producing even larger plumes of vapors as the hot rock met cold ocean. Down the other side of the volcano, there was only green. Green, and quite a vast expanse of arable space for an island neither Hiccup nor Fishlegs had ever heard of before. It was little wonder why the place might be deserted what with the volcano being right there, a great threat to any settlement; however, with how thick the trees grew in many places it was clear that it had not experienced any sort of violent eruption in at least a century or more, despite being clearly very active. It was perfect for the kind of "long-term temporary" base a man like Viggo might construct in order to be in connection with the major lands north and south.

As instructed, as the riders neared they and their dragons began to fan out, checking out different portions of the island for inhabitance and other essential details for their investigation. Hiccup skirted the northern side of the volcano, staying high so it was less likely the unmistakable profile of Toothless would be recognized, and used his spyglass to observe below.

"There are paths leading up the side of the mountain," he reported over his com, "entrances into the sides in several locations, but all well above the level where the lava's coming out. No signs of any people though."

"There are people here however," Embron reported. "At least one decently sized ship anchored a bit to your south, off a point surrounded by forest. Sails are rolled up though, so don't know the origin."

"We'll check it out later then. What about the rest of you?"

"Holly's hogging the binoculars so I can't say," Nick chimed in, earning an elbow from said teen. "Ow!"

"You shush; I've got a better vantage point sitting up front anyway," Holly admonished. "Not much to the way south; lots of forest though, and…hold on."

Hiccup glanced down at Toothless, and they both nodded before the Night Fury angled in the direction Holly had gone. "See something?" he asked over the line.

"Yeah," Holly replied, "but looks like just a statue from here. Vaguely draconic, no species I recognize personally. Huge head, small front limbs, clearly built sturdy. A warning maybe?"

"Could be," Fishlegs chimed in. "Astrid and I are on the east side, and there's another statue here, a huge one, and it's definitely a Boulder Class if it's depicting a real species. But, uh, that's really nothing compared to the other thing over here."

"There's a whole village," Astrid affirmed. "Tiny little harbor, so they don't get much in the way of visits, but it's not a stopoff or trading outpost at all. The buildings look almost military in structure; they're all really uniform and squared off."

"Everyone meet near the west side of the island then," Hiccup decided, "with Embron and I. Stay high; any more details?"

"Yeah, lots of farmland around the edges," Fishlegs reported. "Houses, smith shop, uh, let's see…" There was a pause as Hiccup assumed the rotund man adjusted his spyglass. "…yeah, there's definitely an armory here, so these guys are probably well armed. And a couple of buildings that look like temples or shrines of some sort. Everyone looks to be inside at the moment though, despite the time of day, and I don't see anyone walking around. Whoa, no way!"

"What, spot a library over there Fish?" Nick asked in.

Fishlegs ignored the remark and in the distance Hiccup spotted him on Meatlug, pausing midair on their way over to him. "No," he said instead, "there's a Snaptrapper wandering in the open through the village! Doesn't show any concern; these guys must be relatively dragon-friendly here." Another pause followed that thought. "Gee Hiccup, sure Viggo's associating with this place in any way?"

The rest were beginning to gather again, and Hiccup glanced at them as he mulled over the new info. Trappers almost certainly wouldn't let their quarries wander free, especially those that could swim or fly.

"It could be a ruse," Nick posed, tapping his chin. "The Coalition knows we're out here looking, and while I doubt they would have gotten a message this far south faster than we got here, they could let some wild dragons wander about to make it look like the place is abandoned or dragon-welcoming."

"It would be a good way to draw us in," Judy agreed, apparently breaking her silent treatment like Astrid had predicted. "Best we don't come in from the air, and we should stay spread out a bit on the ground. Stay within eyesight of each other maybe, but we don't want to all be caught unawares."

"I agree," Astrid nodded, looking to Hiccup before pointing below them. "Let's land south of the ship, approach the village through the forest. We can get a closer look there and hopefully stay undetected while we determine if this place is friendly or hostile."

"We'll keep the reptiles on the edges then; they've got better senses than us," Hiccup decided. "Nick, Judy, you too for the same reason. You're smaller, so hopefully if anything goes wrong you can stay out of sight, help from outside if it turns really south. But if it does turn, don't try to rush in right away, okay?"

"You mean like if you somehow manage to get caught," Judy asked skeptically, "we're just supposed to hide? I don't think so."

"Yeah, you're a go-getter, we know," Nick said, "but he's got a point. Hold back a contingent, and a fox and a rabbit are going to be able to sneak around a lot easier than people or dragons, even shrunken Descendent dragons."

The lapine huffed, and would have crossed her arms in a pout if she wasn't busy holding onto Embron's spines. "Fine, but that better mean I get to kick some tail if it comes down to that."

Hiccup chuckled as he directed everyone down, the group landing carefully in amongst the trees on the western shore, out of sight of both the ship and village. Everyone slid off the dragons and Hiccup signaled for the barrier gems to be activated. Nick, recalling his experience at the trading post, didn't hesitate to comply, and everyone else followed suit.

"Alright, everyone travel at least in pairs, but spread out and stay low," Hiccup instructed, pulling out Inferno as a precaution. "Eyes and ears open, and Jake you make sure to alert us if you detect anything; you'll pick up vibrations before any of the rest of us hear anything."

The rattlesnake nodded, tongue flickering, and he glanced toward the two raptors who moved to flank him as well; while he had his head down, they would keep their eyes abroad.

They moved out. To their ears, the forest was eerily silent. What with it being late spring, birds were expected in the trees and dragon species like the Terrors should have been flittering around, exploring beyond their usual flocks. But, the loudest noises to be heard were insects within the abundant flowering bushes and faint rumblings from the volcano. A few avian inhabitants called from within the trees, but they were incredibly sparse.

Very soon as well, Jake found himself beginning to be put off by the natural sensory masks of the island. He could taste people, slightly, and dragons, but the incredibly overwhelming power of the flowers around him were making it hard to concentrate on the composition or age of the scent trails. Worse, the near-constant seismic interference meant he was also having trouble distinguishing vibrations. He could discern the others through the foliage with spotty infrared better than he could catch their footfalls.

"Bad news Hiccup," he said quietly into his headset, "this island's got natural defenses against my senses. Best chance is our eyes."

"Keep trying," Hiccup answered. "They shouldn't expect a forest approach too much so we might be okay, but anything will help."

The rattler grunted, and shared a glance with Phoenix; neither were feeling good about this place. Who built their homes or bases next to a volcano that active anyway?

"He's not the only one getting the jitters," Astrid groused quietly, hands twitching toward the handle of her axe. "I feel like we're already being watched."

A haunting birdsong suddenly echoed from nearby, making her and Hiccup jump and nearly run into their dragon's noses. "Just a bird, you guys," Toothless admonished in slight amusement, though his ears did not stop flickering up at every little noise either. "You see anything over your way Holly?"

"Not yet. But there are some odd marks here in the ground; we may have found a trail."

"Human or game?"

"Not sure; could be either."

Judy had her ears swiveling in every direction as she crept along next to Nick. She could hear every rumble of the volcano in the distance audibly as well, alongside the disturbingly sparse birdsong and louder insects. The lack of birds was something she definitely wasn't used to, having grown up in the Narnian forests and meadows where both fully wild birds and a handful of the larger sapient species were always present, filling springtime trees with song. But she forced herself to ignore the slightly homesick pang that came with that thought in favor of discovering the noises about that she could recognize as of greater importance to their mission.

Her and Nick's footfalls were soft, barely detectable even for her enhanced hearing (and with how much she'd been picking up the past few days it was almost surprising her), and those of the others off through the trees beat out their own soft rhythmic patterns, the steps of the people ironically slightly louder than that of their dragons. The rabbit began counting them off to keep track: one, two raptors and the gliding noise of Jake, three, four, five, six…Toothless, Thorn, Nara, Embron, and Meatlug…two extra footfalls approaching from her south…

Judy froze, ears swiveling toward the sudden intrusions. "Guys, someone else is…" she began to say, before picking up another noise: the soft whistle of a projectile of some sort whizzing through the air.

"Duck!" she yelled, grabbing Nick by the paw and diving to the ground. The fox, to his credit, had noticed Judy's halt moments before picking up on new human scents, and so did not resist as they hit the earth just below the path of a whirling bola that soared over them and vanished into the bushes beyond. Eyes widening, Nick grabbed Judy and held her close as he rolled under the thicket nearby, dropping into a depression below the bushes and out of sight. Judy started to squirm away so she could get into a fighting stance, but Nick stopped her with a glare, mouthing _Remember the plan_.

The others heard the warning seconds before several other bolas and darts appeared from out of the trees. The darts met resistance from their fields and were rendered useless, but the bolas swung around as they were deflected and entangled the dragons and riders, slowing them down.

Holly had a knife in hand a half second after the ropes had knocked her down with the counterweights and cut herself free only seconds later, but as she stood up she found herself face to face with a figure clad in tight black cloth, hiding their face. A sudden sting in her neck, and she rapidly felt herself falling numb, drifting toward unconsciousness and dropping to the ground.

Jake and the raptors avoided the bolas, but not the nets that swept up from below them, trapping them above the ground. Before Quicksilver and Phoenix could cut their way out or Jake could shrink down far enough to slip through, their attackers were below them, firing darts point-blank and bypassing the fields. They soon met the same fate as Holly and Fishlegs, hanging limply in the nets as their black-clad captors lowered them to the ground and bound them.

Hiccup avoided the bolas only by virtue of Astrid, the warrioress whirling violently with her axe in hand and cutting them down as they spun through the air. Their dragons were not as lucky, tangled up already behind them, but Astrid and Hiccup moved to stand guard and brandished their weapons in warning as their attackers approached, Inferno bursting into flame at the latter's hand. They were taken aback however at the appearance of those who surrounded them, more so than the others: each clad almost entirely in black, wrapped sashes cloaking their faces and matching tunics around their torsos, an appearance that felt oddly familiar. Expertly carved blowguns were gripped tightly by each, and they approached in a practiced precision with each other.

"Hold it right there!" Astrid ordered fiercely, twirling her axe in a whirlwind. "I don't want to hurt anyone here just yet but I've got no problem enforcing my personal space! Who are –waaahhh!"

One of the figures had twitched their hand, and the ground beneath both of them fell away, dropping her and Hiccup five feet straight down. Though Astrid was fast enough to land on her feet and help Hiccup to his after his fall, when they looked up the ends of the blowguns met them. Point-blank again, there was no stopping the darts.

* * *

It had taken all of 45 seconds for nearly everyone to be brought down, and in near complete silence their captors gathered the group up, both people and animals, and began to make their way toward the village. Behind them, they closed the trapdoor and reset their nets, expertly camouflaging them until they were nearly impossible to see with the human eye.

One figure hung back momentarily however, searching for the odd reddish creature they thought they had seen near the group, but after finding no tracks or any other signs they passed it up as a trick of the light upon old leaves and joined their fellows.

When the footsteps finally faded completely, the lagomorph and vulpine under the bush finally let out the trembling breaths they had not realized they were holding, and carefully crawled out from under the shrub. They quietly rushed over across the area where the others had been spread through only minutes before, taking care to avoid the nets and traps that stood out clearly to them now as they searched for possible fallen weapons of their friends. Nothing greeted them.

"Who the heck were those people?" Judy mused quietly, eyes wide. "They took all the weapons as well; how the heck did they jump us that easy? If those are the trappers it's going to be really hard to find anything at all here, or even get away for that matter."

"Probably best to avoid the forest it looks like," Nick answered, looking around as his tail twitched uncomfortably. "They've booby-trapped the whole island to defend themselves; this wasn't a recent thing. No wonder this place is off the maps." He reached down, grabbing hold of the handle of the stun gun he'd been given and pulling it out into his paws. "Alright, let's see if we can follow them at a safe distance Carrots…Carrots?"

The rabbit was not looking at him, having gone rigid and staring off into space as her ears swiveled backward, twitching. She held up her paw as Nick moved to speak again, and the fox silenced, turning up his own ears to listen as well. He knew he didn't have the hearing of the rabbit, but his was good, and after several moments he picked up on the same thing she had: voices, coming from the direction of the ship in the bay behind the island.

They shared a glance, silent agreement passing between them before quietly setting off through the woods The voices were low, and on the move, heading toward the volcano, and as the pair weaved through the vegetation they began to pick up distinct words, as well as multiple people, within the conversation of this new party.

"…not the distraction I was hopin' fer, but it means we don't have te wait as long," one of them was saying, softly but with clear authority. "They'll think those pestilent riders are with us and keep busy dealing with them fer at least several more hours, but we ought te be out of here long before then, and need te be in case that thrice-damned Hiccup somehow talks his way out of this one too. Understood?"

A mumble of voices chorused after in agreement, and the first spoke again. "Good. While I take care of the guards, Erlil and Vergil man the snares and you two clear the slopes. Grigmund will stay with me; we get in, we get out with the dragon, and we leave. The volcano will take care of the rest." A bit of shuffling followed, and then at a low whistle a coordinated march moved off again.

"That answers one question," Judy said softly when they were distanced enough again, "the others with our friends aren't the trappers then. They're being played, and we're caught in the middle; the people here must be either dragon-friendly or hostile to everyone, so…"

"So either they'll punish Hiccup and company on principle of trespassing, or think they're the ones taking dragons captive and kill them for that crime," Nick finished, his eyes widening. "If the dragons wake up after that…alright, uh, let's not dwell on that image. Let's go Carrots."

"Do you have a plan?" the rabbit asked, looking up at him as they scurried off through the trees again.

Nick shook his head. "Not yet; we'll figure it out along the way. You're fast and smaller, you can probably get in and cut ropes, find the weapons, get everyone loose, so once we get a layout of the area we'll set up the details and use those strengths. Sound good?"

"And what are you going to be doing, Slick?"

Nick gave a smirk. "Who, me? Mostly be myself probably."

* * *

Blinding sunlight was the first thing that greeted them as they began to rouse from their drug-induced slumber. Holly was the first to open her eyes, wincing at the glare and mild headache that joined her, followed by Hiccup. Groggily, the two of them gazed around, taking note of the open space they were in, their close proximity to each other, and the similarly snug position of the other two Vikings. Secondarily, they noticed that they couldn't move.

"Hey! What the hell?" Holly exclaimed, fighting off her light head and the ache that came with it as she thrashed against the ropes binding not only her hands but tying everyone to the thick pole at their backs. Hiccup tried wriggling as well, reaching for the dagger at his belt, only to discover two things: one, he could not reach far enough to pull it out without dislocating something, and two, even if he could have it wasn't there anymore. Clarity reaching him finally, he also only realized that the only weapon he still had in his possession was the one on his back that no one could remove without serious personal harm occurring. Fat lot of good it did him though, unable to reach Framherja anyway.

"Calm down Holly, we'll figure this out," he said pointedly, looking over at the thrashing young teen.

"Calm down?!" Holly snapped back, leveling her infamous smoldering glare at him. "They attacked and drugged us, stole all my knives, I don't know what the hell they did with Nara and company, and"-

WHAM!

"Mnnnhhh!"

Something hard whacked her across the head, sending white and red sparks across her vision for a moment before pain replaced it. Looking up, she found another of the black-clad figures standing over them, this time with a staff in hand and, for the first time, no scarves obscuring the hard-set jaw and short strawberry-blond hair he sported.

"Okay, _you_ I will enjoy hurting when I get loose," she seethed. The man did not change his expression, but did rear back to hit her again.

"Wait!" Hiccup yelled, halting him and gaining the man's attention. "Don't hit her!" he pleaded. "If you need someone to beat then do so me but _don't_ hit her again!"

The man regarded him silently for a moment, before thankfully lowering the staff. "Are you the responsible head of your party?" he asked in a low, stern voice.

Hiccup swallowed anxiously, before nodding slowly. "I…in a manner of speaking, yes."

The blond stepped slowly forward to stand in front of him, before swiftly leaning down to cut Hiccup away from the pole, grabbing the rope still tied to him and jerking him up to his feet. "Then you will die first for the crimes you have committed here!" he declared, pushing the staff up under Hiccup's jaw. Despite both of them having nearly the same height, Hiccup suddenly felt like he was looking well up at the other.

"What?!" Astrid shrieked, now also fully awake alongside Fishlegs. At her outburst, other people began appearing from around all sides of the plaza they were in, weapons in hand in case of an altercation. "What did we do that deserves death? Other than possible trespassing which really should be looked over, what the hell did we do? What is that final to you, huh?"

"You kidnap and enslave dragons, kill them for abominable uses, and parade their wares around like common clothing," a new, feminine voice spoke up. From behind the man holding Hiccup up like a rag doll appeared another blonde, this time a lithe, median-aged woman in a dark green split dress bound by a golden sash and the same black scarves the others around her wore upon her neck and waist. She stood proudly before them, glaring with near-disgust at their group.

"I know not how long you've been waiting to invade our island," she toned darkly, "but we've been preparing for years, and now that you finally slipped up so foolishly we will free the dragons you held under your sway and be rid of that much more of this pestilence."

"Kidnap and…you think _we're_ the dragon trappers?" Hiccup exclaimed incredulously. "No, no, you've got it all wrong; we're after them because of what they've done too!"

"Then explain to me this atrocity!" the woman snapped, throwing a tangled pile of leather and Myscale at his feet.

Hiccup immediately recognized the contraption, and several emotions ran through him at once. "My saddle," he whispered. "What…what did you do to the dragons?"

The woman shrugged as if her answer was the most natural thing in the world. "Why, freed them of course," she said airily. "No dragon in its right mind would willingly submit to being ridden by the likes of you, only more proof of your enslavement of them."

"You sound like the PETA people our friend rants about," Fishlegs snarked, twisting as best he could away from the pole he and the two girls were still bound to. "You must not know much about dragons if you think they won't willingly let people ride them. We don't force dragons to do so, they let us ride of their own volition; my Meatlug prefers flying with someone as opposed to alone, and she adores her saddle! What did you do with it? Tell me you didn't burn it! What did you do to the dragons?!"

"Not a terrible idea," the blonde mused, narrowing her eyes before snapping her fingers and turning away. "Bring them!" she ordered.

"Yes Mala," the man holding Hiccup's bonds said, nodding to a group of guards nearby who each moved forward, cutting the ropes attaching the other three to the pole and each grabbing one of them, hauling all four to their feet and dragging them along behind where Mala was headed.

They traveled only a short distance, rounding the corner of one building before halting. Splayed out on the ground before them were, indeed, the dragons, Jake, and the raptors, each one looking like they'd gotten into a boatload of dragon nip and fallen asleep with wide smiles on their faces. A further distance off lay a tangled mess of all their equipment: the saddles and tents, Jake's bullet belts and hat (they couldn't physically remove his gun, though it was clear they had attempted), and Embron and the raptors' tool belts. The Vikings' weapons were nowhere to be seen however.

"The inhabitants of Frey Drekki allow dragons to travel as they will unimpeded, as they were meant to," Mala explained harshly, glancing between the dragons and Descendants and their riders. "But you cruel minds subject them to work at your will, laboring for you and the subjects of your experiments. You bolted a weapon to that poor creature's tail," she pointed to Jake," and you parade around with the same cursed metals and jewels the great sorceress from the east used in her battles." She loomed over them, a shadow of judgement in her mind. "No matter the lies you try to feed me, the truth sits plainly before my eyes."

She leaned forward, one hand moving behind her back as she gazed at Hiccup. "Young fool, did you honestly think that after all of this I would believe you just happened to show up at the same time as that ship that haunts our waters from time to time, bearing the emblem of cursed hunters?"

"If you would shut up for one minute and let one of us actually explain, you would!" Astrid yelled, garnering the attention of the older woman, and her ire. "We are part of the Hairy Hooligan tribe of Berk, not the Coalition of Trappers and Hunters. We're here because they kidnapped one of our dragons, but instead of finding him we ended up here, ambushed and with all our dragons drugged out of their minds, clearly. You"-

"Now I truly have heard enough," Mala interrupted. "The Vikings to the north have fought and killed innocent dragons for longer than even the hunters have existed, and your stubborn mindsets don't change that quickly. The dragons are fine, and will wake up without the hindrance of your brainwashing presence." She drew a sword from a scabbard on her back, and turned back to Hiccup. "As the leader as you claimed, you will die first."

"NO! STOP!" the other three yelled, but to no avail as Mala lifted the blade.

"I would seriously reconsider your next move, your majesty," a new voice called out over the scene, halting the woman's movements. She lowered the sword, turning to locate the source of the interruption, but found no one out of place.

"Up here, if you will," it said again. "Geez, for as defensive as you people are you're not very observant."

On top of the roof of a nearby building, leaning against the edge of a stone support column, was a very smug looking red fox decked out in a smooth, navy blue outfit. With attention finally on him, he gave a cheery wave. "Hi! Now that I've got your focus, drop the sword and release my friends," he ordered.

"What great abuse of life is this?" Mala breathed in shock, glancing with ever growing distaste toward Hiccup again.

Nick barked out a laugh and shook his head. "Heh, you really need to get out more," he chided. "You might be self-sufficient here but you really could use an update on the state of the world. The name's Nick; I'm from Narnia, little country about, oh," he jerked his thumb to the west, "about 1500 miles that way. Talking animals are kind of the norm there, have been for a thousand years or so.

"Anyway, before you make any more rash decisions, just wanted to warn you about a few things: when the dragons and company over there wake up –and no, those are not all dragons, FYI- and all their saddles are off, they're going to freak out. They're kind of fond of them after all, symbol of their friendship and all that. Jake will be especially ticked that you stole his hat and belts and tried to take his tail gun, whoopsie. And if you even try to hurt, let alone kill my friends there, double whoopsie: I can drop you from here before you lift that sword again, and the Night Fury you have knocked out over there sees Hiccup, the scrawny brunette in front of you, as his brother. One of the Nadders over there is _literally_ the half-sister of the crazy teenager you've got tied up and let your crony smack around too, and siblings to Jake, the Nightmare, and the raptors. And whoopsie number threesie, if you kill Hiccup, or any of them really, you will start a war with the allied Viking tribes since he's kind of a chief's son and the Dragon Whisperer and they're all respected warriors and protectors. Oh, and just to top it all off, big oops number four…"

Nick paused, his smug look melting and turning dead serious as he leaned forward. "Hurt any of them, especially the teen girl," he warned, "you will have basically ensured that your island no longer exists by the time the sun sets."

"W-who are you to make such threats?" Mala asked haltingly.

Nick shrugged again and leaned casually back against the column. "Me?" he scoffed. "I couldn't do much myself, but I have my finger on the button that would alert Holly's full brother of the mess going on here, and he kind of really values his family. You ever heard of Hawken, the dracomorph?"

A slow shake of Mala's head answered.

"No? Well, like the people in front of you, he's special, a protector of sorts for people, dragons, Narnians, etc. He can turn into any dragon, and has all the abilities of any of the species you can imagine to boot. That includes dragons that can level mountains with a flick of their wrist and bend lightning to their will. Knowing that, want to listen before you draw any further harebrained conclusions?"

When Mala hesitated, Nick's ears pricked up. Whipping his hand upward, he pointed his stun gun up above his head, but never moved his gaze from hers. "Let this guy know that if he moves again he'll be hurtin' quite a bit," he said lightly, glancing up to see a young man frozen at the top of the roof, having tried to sneak up on him but instead finding himself looking at the barrel of a gun. Letting out a sigh, Nick deflated, and leapt off the roof, front-flipping once before landing with ease. "Alright, no admission to speak freely yet I see. Next option: hey Hopps, wanna level the field a little bit?"

A loud crash sounded from the storehouse near the plaza, followed by several not-so-manly yelps of pain, before the nearest doors burst open followed by a grey and blue blur dashing across the dirt. Judy leapt upward, a knife held firmly in her paw, and kicked the guards holding everyone's ropes out of the way before she carefully cut loose their bonds. Turning, she dashed under the man guarding Hiccup and dragged his feet out from under him, his staff rolling toward Holly as Judy then cut Hiccup loose.

Hiccup wasted no time reaching back and pulling out the one weapon he still had on him, drawing Framherja's string back in warning. The move gave pause enough to the scene to allow the others to get to their feet and in a ready stance, and for Holly to scoop up the fallen staff.

The whole while, Nick continued to casually saunter over toward the storehouse Judy had burst out of, bending down and picking up Astrid's axe and Fishlegs' swords. "I'll let you guys get the others in a moment," he said nonchalantly, turning around and, sauntering again right past a stunned Mala and giving her a wink, handing the weapons to their owners. "Now, field's almost level, save…Holly, want the honor or should I just shoot him on low power?"

The teen grinned, gripping the staff she now held tightly and walking up to Hiccup's former captor and her abuser, swinging the end into the side of his head with an audible crack and sending him rolling with his hands over his head in pain.

"Yeah, needed to get that off my chest," she decided. "Now, where's my stuff?"

Nick gestured toward the pile of weapons by the storehouse, and she went running while the fox turned to regard Mala again.

"Let's ask again," he drawled in amusement, noting out of the corner of his eye the sizzling beam stretched across Framherja as Hiccup aimed it. "Want to listen?"

This time, there was little question of who had the advantage; the fox clearly knew the villagers' tricks and their layout, the rabbit was faster than any of them could hope to be and strong enough to knock even their strongest warriors off their feet, and the Viking leader of the group was holding a weapon that bristled with electricity, suggesting at least some truth to their wild tales. Mala faintly nodded assent, sensing nothing would end well otherwise.

Nick looked to Hiccup, who lowered Framherja but nodded for the others to keep alert for unwanted surprises. "Considering what Nick said a moment ago, and from what I've seen so far, I assume you're the chieftess or queen of this place?" he asked carefully.

Mala nodded mutely, and Nick snickered. "Guess she's not used to foxes sneaking out info from right under her nose," he muttered, before whining as Judy punched him to shut up.

Hiccup sighed, before trying to continue "Alright, let's at least get this straightened out," he started. "If you are so against the dragon hunters, then we would be better off allied with each other than at each other's throats, because clearly they've done horrible things to both of us. I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, heir to the chiefdom of Berk, and I was the one who ended the war between the dragons and Vikings eight years ago with the help of Toothless, the Night Fury you thought you were saving from me. We've grown up together since, protected each other and our family, and once upon a time he was injured and couldn't fly on his own, so I gave him the chance to do so and he rejected it in favor of flying with me."

Seeing the questions arising from the queen, Hiccup moved to sum up the story. "Once, Toothless had only half a tailfin, which has long since been mended by our brother Hawken whom Nick mentioned earlier, but before then I helped him fly with one I built. Anyway, Hawken came into our lives several years ago as well, has fought alongside us since, and a lot has changed from what you believe is going on. Missionaries came to try and rid us of the dragons once, and instead now one of them lives among us and fights with us now too. The sorceress you mentioned was hunting down another friend of ours and ended up on our island. We won that battle, and she's not around anymore; the gems and metals you saw are because there were powerful people under her control who are our allies now and lend us said tools to help protect people. And now, the head of the Coalition of Hunters wants to take us out of the picture as well, and is doing so by taking my 'nephew' of sorts, Toothless' son, as a hostage against us to keep us from interfering with his business.

"Your island doesn't exist on any common maps," he explained, "but it was on one of theirs which we found on a ship at a trading port up north. We thought that it might be one of their bases, possibly where they were keeping Tsefan, so we came here to find out. Lo and behold, a mystery ship sits next to a volcanic island with dragon statues and odd building designs that look a bit like forts from a distance, and a handful or roaming, dangerous dragon species were wandering through the forest and village when we arrived. We landed, hoping to get answers, and instead got ambushed and knocked out under a false pretense, so now we stand here with both sides angry at the other while the trappers do who-knows-what behind our backs with full freedom to move since we can't go anywhere, as the dragons are all still out. What on earth did you give them anyway?"

"A special calming sedative," Mala said quietly; regret was finally starting to creep into her voice, though it was still marked by suspicion. "We use it to help injured dragons or those needing rehabilitation that end up here, and the trappers would give anything to get their hands on the recipe for it. But despite your elaborate story my question is still not answered: why do these dragons permit you to ride them when no dragon we have ever encountered would seem to do so?"

"A mutual trust and loyalty," Fishlegs answered. "Dragons, most anyway, are actually primed to bond with people. It immunizes them from Alpha influences, replacing that bond. But, if you simply acknowledge them as free spirits and never try to seriously understand or work with them, they won't bond with you either and only bonded dragons or similarly close friends generally allow being ridden, and they will be very particular about who rides them. Toothless only lets his family do so, same with most dragons."

"If that's explanation enough, we still have a big problem on our hands," Judy spoke up, before frowning at the looks she was getting from the villagers. "And yes, I'm a talking rabbit, get over it. Nick and I are looking for clues for a case concerning our home alongside helping our friends here search for their missing dragon, neither of which we've gotten much headway on. Your taking everyone captive set us all back further too, while simultaneously providing the real trappers an opening that they were apparently waiting for."

"An opening?" Mala queried, concern rising again. "What do you mean? You say you didn't come from that ship; if you're telling the truth, are they on the island as well now?"

"We mean that while you were busy carting everyone else off like the end to a successful hunting party," Nick drawled, spinning the stun gun in his hands before holstering it, "we were still back in the forest and, yes, happened to stumble on the guys who are actually from that ship traipsing through the woods. They headed for the volcano for whatever reason, and were talking about taking out the guards that you've got placed up there for probably said reason. That was a few hours ago though, since we had to break our friends out and couldn't just keep following them, so they probably already got what they came here for and left."

He glanced up at the distant peak, which seemed to almost be glowing with a greater fervor than before. "If that's any indication, it doesn't spell good news for anyone on the ground here either," he noted, watching the ash rise. "And with the dragons still out of commission for who knows how long, there's no running them down yet."

Mala followed his gaze, and gasped at the sight, eyes growing wide in fear. "The Eruptodon!" she exclaimed, seeming to forget to care about their former captives as she gestured to several of her guards, all of them taking off behind her down the path toward the smoking mountain.

* * *

 **A/N- And the new chapter is here, finally! And later than I wanted as usual...there may be one more chapter coming out in a couple weeks to round off this particular part of the story, but afterward I may be taking a break for a month, month and a half or so to get a few chapters written and typed up for both current stories so that I actually have them ready for the release dates I want. Work may necessitate this too, since the next month will be our busy time, though there might still be an entry or two to the Book of Dragons in the meantime so keep an eye out for those.**

 **Anyway, what do you think? Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, predictions etc. in your reviews! And, I could use some suggestions for what kind of collection Nick might be hiding that he doesn't want found; I haven't actually reached the point of writing it out anywhere yet, but chances are Holly would find out eventually, so it could show up later in the story or in the one-shot series that will be started up afterward.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	14. Chapter 13: Alliance found

**A/N- And we're back! Ugh, life sucks and this took way longer to finish than I was hoping, but chapter updates will now resume. Onward to finish the scene from our last chapter...**

* * *

Chapter 13

Alliance Found

/

 _It's always shaky at first_

 _Not knowing if they're really friends_

 _You wonder and question and hold your cards close_

 _It's rarely their own fault though_

 _They're also taking chances_

 _You're a risk as well to them you know_

 _So be ready to give a hand_

 _To extend the olive branch_

 _Give them the chance to open up as well_

 _Perhaps you'll find an ally there_

 _A comrade in this fight_

 _And together, better both of you will be_

 _-0-_

Mala raced along the path with her second (Throc, Hiccup thought he heard her call him) and her guards right behind her. Trailing them, Hiccup and Astrid followed, leaving the others to gather their items and try and start strapping the removed saddles back onto the dragons (or, in Nick's case, drive the other villagers nuts by quizzing them about their daily lives and snapping off snarky remarks as he attempted to untangle the saddles with Judy). They paced rapidly through the forest, approaching the volcano ten minutes later and climbing carefully carved steps up its flank, trying to ignore the ominous rumblings underfoot.

About halfway up the side of the peak, the path leveled out into a larger open space, and a cave opening plunged into the earth. At its entrance, a quartet of armored guards lay sprawled across the ground. Most of them were unconscious and still breathing, bearing only minor visible injuries, but one guard…he wouldn't rise again.

"Oh, Haftel," Mala whispered soberly as she bent down to the fallen man, placing a hand on his cheek, before her expression hardened again and she stood up, hurrying into the cave. A short, snaking path brought them nearly to the core of the volcano, a grand cavern that was swelteringly warm. They stood on a wide ledge, below which grand ash plumes billowed up from the roiling lake of magma that cast an eerie carmine glow upon the scene. It was slowly rising too, explosive geysers growing nearer to the point where they would threaten those alive on the ledge.

"He's gone," Mala despaired, staring down into the pit as her face fell. "They stole him, right out from under us."

"The Eruptodon lived in here?" Hiccup asked, glancing with worry at her.

Mala nodded, her brows knitting together as she was reminded of her company. "Yes, they live in active volcanoes. Their nesting habits release the violent gases in the magma so the volcano does not erupt, and they dig vents to prevent overflow. But without him here, the volcano may build pressure and go off violently, and in any direction it pleases rather than out the spillways leading to the sea." She looked over at him, anger resurfacing with a vengeance. "I still hold my suspicions and this does not help, Hiccup Haddock. If you are working with the monsters that did this I should have you killed here and now and deal with your friends when we return to the village."

Hiccup moved to interject, but Mala held up a hand, cutting him off. "I didn't say I would," she continued. "If I am to believe your tales instead then you are currently the only real option I have to rely on to get the Eruptodon back to his home. If the hunters were smart enough to use you as a distraction to ensure the destruction of my village, an equally inexcusable atrocity among the many they've committed, then they are smart enough not to stay within reach of our ships and we have no other way to reach them."

"Then let us prove that we weren't lying," Astrid pleaded. "Yes, we can help you, but we need our dragons to do so. When will they wake up?"

"Shortly, if they react like others have."

"Then we can track their ship, free the Eruptodon, and bring him back here and help to ward off the hunters from here onward," Hiccup added, nodding in agreement with Astrid.

Mala still stood conflicted. "But how do I know that you will not simply fly off and leave us here to die?" she asked. "I have no solid reason to trust you yet, and there is nothing else holding you here but those dragons."

"We are _not_ the hunters," Hiccup insisted. "We're supposed to protect people, even if they didn't give us the warmest of welcomes to start. But, if you truly can't let yourself trust us to do the right thing then I will personally invite you to come with us; the Eruptodon lives on your island after all and perhaps a familiar face will help him."

The offer threw the queen. "You mean… _ride_ a dragon?" she asked uncertainly.

"That's the general idea, yes."

"But…it is forbidden for us to do so here."

"And why is that? Truly by your laws, or simply through tradition because no one here has ever tried to do so?"

The silence that followed answered his question, alongside the dawning look of acknowledgement on Mala's face. He nodded, a smile forming again. "We're wasting time here. Let's head back to your village and figure out plan from there, okay?"

Mala nodded, but pointed first to Throc. "Gather men and help the injured off the volcano," she ordered. "And our downed; we will have to prepare a funeral once this is settled."

They were in luck; the dragons and Descendants were starting to come around by the time they got back, helped onto their feet by the water the villagers had offered. As Mala and the others approached, all heads turned in their direction, the dragons and company bearing several displeased glares among them.

"And where'd you disappear off to?" Quicksilver quipped to Hiccup and Astrid, cracking his neck as he shook off the last of his chemically induced stupor and readjusted his vest.

"Went to see just what the damage was that the actually dragon trappers caused," Hiccup replied, glancing back toward the volcano. "They stole the Eruptodon that was living in there, seemingly in hopes that the volcano will destroy the village here now."

"It makes sense; like we thought a place like this would be advantageous for them to use," Fishlegs nodded. "Wipe out the village, and then they can return with the Eruptodon afterward and retain the island as a new base between the Archipelago and Britain. They'd gain an advantageous location and get rid of an adversary at the same time; would have been even more enemies gone if Nick hadn't shown up and given us a chance to explain ourselves."

"Your dragons can talk?" Mala interrupted, still looking at Quicksilver.

The raptor snorted in response. "Well, I'm not a dragon," he said. "I'm a Metaraptor; Jake over there is a rattlesnake, and Phoenix is like me. But yes, most of us can speak the common tongue, save Thorn and Meatlug."

::Lucky us,:: the mentioned Nadder huffed.

Smiling in slight amusement at the banter, Hiccup walked over to Toothless and adjusted the saddle that had been put back on him, before looking at his friend with concern. "Think you're well enough to fly again yet, bud?"

"Give me a couple of minutes, and I should be," Toothless replied, before glancing at Mala. "Why, again, were our saddles and such taken off?"

"Long story," Hiccup toned, before looking at the group. "Okay, Nick, you ride with Astrid, Judy with Holly, Jake with Fishlegs. Embron, you good carrying the raptors?"

"Not a problem."

"Alright. And Mala," he continued, turning toward the woman who once again was bearing an apprehensive expression, "if you are willing, you can ride with me."

"I do not advise this myself, Mala," Throc grumbled, crossing his arms.

Mala glanced at him, and then to Hiccup's outstretched hand, and her lips pursed. After a moment she clearly made a decision. "Perhaps if I am to understand what these riders see, I need to view it from their perspective," she said, stepping toward the Viking and his dragon. "And it is my job to protect my village at any cost, Throc. Besides, I wish to be there to give my personal regards to the hunters that have so threatened us." She looked back to the guards. "You can take care of the village while we are away, and I doubt it will be very long if it goes well."

Hiccup looked to Toothless, who nodded acquiescence, and climbed on, strapping himself in before offering his hand again to Mala. The woman hesitated momentarily again though, looking up at him as if she were about to go skydiving.

"Don't worry, we promise to catch you if you fall off!" Nick called from behind Astrid, before yelping as the warrioress elbowed him.

"Not helping, Nick!" she snapped.

Mala swallowed, apparently taking his words (and the implied risk) more to heart than the riders hoped, but she steeled herself and took Hiccup's hand, climbing on behind him as he reached back and held up a pair of straps.

"Clip these to yourself, if you can," he said, "just to be safe. And ignore the fox."

Mala nodded, finally giving a slight smile at the joke, and after fumbling for a moment she clipped the straps to her belted sash.

"Oh, and you might want to hold on to something," Hiccup added, grinning. Mala looked up, and momentarily locked eyes with Toothless as he glanced back at her while he spread his wings. She had just long enough to suck in another nervous breath before those wings slammed downward and the earth fell away below them in a great blast of wind.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

Hiccup felt a pair of strong arms suddenly clamp around his middle as Mala screamed, and he looked back to see her squeezing her eyes shut at tightly as she was constricting him, teeth clenched in a matching grimace. Laughter floated up around them as the others followed them up, Thorn and Nara coming along beside Toothless with their respective passengers all grinning.

"Don't worry, the takeoff's always the worst part!" Nick laughed, leaning over. "It'll be a smooth ride from here!"

"Yeah, Nick wouldn't let go of Holly for the first twenty minutes he flew!" Judy snickered. "Open your eyes, it's fine now!"

"I think…I think I will be fine to stay as this until we land again," Mala declined, to which the rabbit let out a disappointed huff and looked up to Holly.

"You're more likely to get airsick if you don't look around," the teen informed. "Your senses will be imbalanced otherwise. If you have to, look at the horizon only, but it's better to get bearings on where you are. And, you did mention 'our perspective,' right?"

Mala's grimace widened, but after a few moments she did slowly crack her eyes open and lean upward slightly.

The sight of her island below met her gaze, verdant and flowering with the volcano rising almost majestically from the northern end, streams of lava pouring off the far side into the blue ocean framing the entirety of the scene. She gave a sharp gasp of surprise, loosening her grip, before catching the knowing smiles bent sent her way by both the riders and their dragons.

Quickly the woman cleared her throat and moved to compose herself, trying to regain the dignity lost in her reaction. "I…forgive me, that display was terribly undignified," she said softly, earning a chuckle from Hiccup.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "The only people here who didn't scream the first time they flew were Hawken and Judy. And they don't really count anyway, since Hawken can fly himself and Judy, well…"

"She's an adrenaline junky of a bunny who breaks all the rules as is," Nick supplied, glancing at the rabbit in expectation of a reaction.

Judy shrugged. "Well, can't deny it, so I won't," she said. "Besides, I'm in good company."

"Yeah, riding with the knife-happy sister of the dragon man," Holly laughed.

Hiccup snickered again before his expression turned serious once more. "Okay, enough antics people. Fishlegs, out front; Jake, can you pick up the ship's trail?"

As they swept over the bay where the ship had been anchored, Fishlegs steered Meatlug out in front of the group and Jake slithered out onto the top of her head, tongue flickering rapidly. Mala's eyes widened when she realized this was the same snake as she had kept drugged in the village, but no longer a 50 foot imposing figure; now, he was small enough to comfortably sit on someone's shoulders. Turning back slightly, she spotted the similarly shrunken raptors holding onto Embron's spinal crests.

Before she could question this new great curiosity, Jake called out, "Yep! Found their trail!" His tongue flickered rapidly, and his head swung south. "Gets stronger this direction; they left only about an hour ago."

"There's a decent breeze from the west; they may already be quite a ways out!" Fishlegs noted. "It won't be a short flight."

"Then let's get moving!" Hiccup ordered. "We don't have any more time to lose."

* * *

Half an hour of flying swept by, and soon the unmistakable silhouette of a ship appeared on the horizon, sails billowing in the steady wind coming in from the ocean and prow cutting the waves with ivory spray. Upon the great sheets of cloth propelling the craft, the signature hunters' insignia was clearly emblazoned now.

"Well, if there was any question before that it was them it's gone now," Hiccup growled, feeling Mala tense up behind him as he pulled out his pair of binoculars and focused them on the ship. "I don't see any dragons on the deck; they must be holding him bound down below somewhere."

"I'll take out the guards with Holly; you and Fishlegs go with Mala to find the Eruptodon," Astrid said, unslinging her axe to have it at the ready as they approached.

Hiccup nodded. "Everyone, barriers on!" he called out.

Commotion erupted on the ship's deck as they neared close enough to be easily spotted, and Toothless gave a snarl when he heard someone shout, "Prepare the bola launchers!" Nudging Hiccup to alert him, the rider nodded and told Mala to hold on tight as the Night Fury banked hard, watching the spinning net fly by harmlessly before he let loose a shot at the next ready launcher. The entirety of the contraption vaporized under the indigo explosion.

Hiccup pulled Framherja out as they turned to face the ship again and quipped to his extra passenger, "So, were you wondering what this did?" Not waiting for a response, he pulled back the string and let loose, a bolt of lightning ripping through the first launcher and exploding, leaving an opening for the others to sweep in. Embron strafed the ship's opposite side, flaming the launchers there and letting the raptors leap aboard, and Thorn swept down toward the deck, flaring above the sails first to make sure it was safe.

"Cover me!" Nick suddenly yelled, leaping from the saddle.

"Nick, wait!" Astrid yelled, snapping her arm out to try and catch him, but it was too late.

Nick reached out as he fell, catching the sail with his claws and tearing great furrows into the cloth, slowing himself down momentarily as he moved to grab his taser gun. Then he hit a stitch in the sail and was thrown off again, freefalling toward the deck. Before he had time to react to the sudden change though, something small and fast rammed into his side, his field flaring before he found furry paws gripping his arms tightly as his descent slowed to a steady, manageable pace.

"If you're going to jump off dragons, you should at least _use_ the rocket pack Zipeau gave us, you dumb fox!" Judy chided, setting both of them down carefully before turning off the boosters on her back. "That's not what he provided them for, but still."

"Well sorry if I thought my plan was going to work," Nick huffed back, brushing himself off. "Didn't know you can't just slide down a sail." He turned as someone nearby let out a loud yell, taking his weapon out without a problem this time and firing before watching in amusement as the trapper headed for them simultaneously dropped his axe and started dancing from the electric charge the dart supplied.

"We could have told you that before you tried!" Holly yelled, somersaulting off Nara and landing expertly on the deck, pulling out a pair of throwing darts and whirling to pin a pair of trappers against the far mast. "Tuffnut tried once, and had about as much success you did, but without the rabbit to rescue him and he wasn't wearing his barrier."

Knowing how the male twin enjoyed pain, and knowing he was clearly now fine, Nick couldn't help but snigger at the image despite almost having the same experience. His mirth didn't last long as he swerved out of the way of a broadsword aimed at his head, bringing up his gun only to be shoved back as a powerful punch connected with his barrier field and didn't merely bounce away. He looked up to meet the gaze of a large, bald man with piercing brown eyes glaring down at him, face marked by a narrow, defining mustache.

"I thought you were…" the man started, before trailing off as he scrutinized Nick, shaking his head. The fox did not miss the disconcerting flicker of false recognition though.

"Never mind," the man quipped, turning his sword as he blocked a tranquilizing dart shot by Judy and reaching behind his back. "Can't leave well enough alone, can ye?" He flung his hand forward, releasing a wide mesh net and intent on restraining his foes.

Nick ducked and skittered out from underneath the ropes, rolling and using his tail to balance himself as he flung himself back to his feet, but Judy and Holly (who had been fast approaching) were caught underneath. Before either could cut themselves free the man yanked on the corner that he hadn't released and sent them stumbling, bringing up his sword to make a kill.

"Ryker!"

Ryker turned to find a glinting axe swinging for his head, forcing him to duck and bring up his own sword as protection only to have it cleaved through like it was butter.

Astrid followed suit behind her swing with a fierce kick to the hunter's gut, sending Ryker stumbling. "Yeah, I remember you just fine," she growled. "Out here doing your brother's dirty work again?"

"Making our living," Ryker bit back, throwing his now useless sword away as he pulled out a whip, "and wondering why you would be so foolish as to ignore our warning. You interfere, your precious young Night Fury gets hurt!"

"Hard for that to happen if you can't get anywhere to send the message."

"We can communicate across vast distances without obstruction; you underestimate us again."

Ryker cracked his whip, keeping Nick from lining up a shot and raising the difficulty for even quick-footed Astrid to get in position for a swing. But, his distraction allowed Holly and Judy to extricate themselves from the net and surround the trapper, unworried as the others took care of the rest of the crew.

As the man maintained his defensive stance, a savage hiss erupted at his feet. Ryker looked down only just in time to watch Jake explode up from five feet to twenty-five, wrapping himself tightly around the hunter and baring his fangs.

"Try moving again, I dare you," he hissed, rattle shaking furiously.

Toothless landed nearby, his two passengers dismounting and Mala immediately marching toward Ryker, sword drawn. "You would destroy my whole village for a profit; I will take your head for my people!" she roared, raising her blade.

"Mala, wait!" Hiccup yelled, flashing his own sword in preparation to block her and Astrid doing the same. "Kill him and everything unravels," he urged. "You might get the Eruptodon back but Viggo will come against you with everything he has in revenge over his brother, and he might kill Tsefan in the process! Please, let us deal with him. Astrid, get what you can; Mala and I will find the dragon."

Mala did not move for a moment, her eyes burning holes through the captive hunter even as he gazed back with complete unrepentance. Slowly though, she did lower her sword.

"The protection of my people is worth more than your life," she decided, bitter venom tainting her words as she sheathed her blade.

Hiccup deflated with relief and turned to lead her toward the entrance to the cargo hold, the two of them disappearing below with Toothless, Fishlegs not far behind. Astrid, meanwhile, leveled her glare back against Ryker.

"I'm trying to get my head around why you would attempt such a bullheaded thing as this," she growled. "Say you did succeed in getting the Drekkians to kill us and you made off with the Eruptodon. It would be weeks before the village would actually have been destroyed, more than enough time for them to leave, and then come after you in revenge."

"It wouldn't take that long. But they would have to find us, and have forces enough to deal with ours," Ryker parried, "which they don't, especially as they never bond with dragons like you pests do. And your interference will be heard by Viggo shortly enough; your _beloved_ said it himself, you can't kill me, and I will contact him. Do you want your little dragon to suffer?"

"Technically we're not interfering with your business in terms of looking for Tsefan or by our own will entirely," Nick piped up, sauntering into Ryker's line of sight. "We were searching a lead when we came to the island, but then we were kidnapped by the inhabitants and our lives threatened; ergo, now we're only defending ourselves by proving our innocence to them, and simultaneously preventing an entire culture from either perishing or being displaced from their clearly rightful domain due to the actions of a handful of blockheads. Terrible decision really, and one you forced our hands on yourself. If you think about it, it's just a sad, tragic coincidence that it just happens to involve your appallingly shiny head at all."

"Although, while we're here it wouldn't hurt to see what you know," Judy mused, leaning against Nick with a smirk to match his own. "But you won't give us anything, that I already know; you're too close to this Viggo guy himself."

"His brother," Holly quipped.

Judy nodded, glancing over her shoulder at another crew member, the one Nick had shot first who was coming once more to his senses. "We can quiz him though, see what he knows," she decided. "I mean, not his fault his reasoning might have been fried by the electricity and he could let something slip without meaning to. Mind holding Ryker for a bit longer, Jake?"

"Not a problem," the rattler replied, squeezing down so as to make his captive gasp for air for a moment.

Below, Hiccup darted quickly down the wide corridor, looking in through the cells for their quarry. Though he'd never actually seen one in person, he had a rough idea of what the dragon should look like thanks to the DreamWorks series that had been running (and thinking of that, he realized he should have seen this particular fiasco unfolding the moment they reached the island). More hunters posted as guards by the cages found themselves quickly either knocked out by the butt of Inferno against their head or flattened by Toothless' paws, and soon, the little group came upon a very large, inhabited cell.

The dragon inside was massive, bulky, with an oversized blunt head and tiny front arms that looked almost completely useless. Had it been standing it would have balanced bipedally on its powerful hind legs, its head offset by the equally sturdy and blunt tail that coiled around it now.

"He's marvelous," Fishlegs awed, eyes lighting up as he started analyzing the dragon. "Clearly Boulder Class, must have powerful limbs and claws, incredible heat tolerance; I wonder what its preferred foods are…"

"You can geek out quietly too, you know," Toothless snipped, leaning up against the gate with Hiccup as they prepared to open the locks. With a single swipe of his blade, Hiccup cut open the latch and chain holding the doors closed, and he, Fishlegs, and Toothless heaved to pull the doors open. As they did so, Mala rushed past them, kneeling down next to the dragon and laying her hand on its face.

"He's been drugged with dragonroot," she snarled with distaste. "If they did this on the island he may not wake up for several hours more, and it may be nearly impossible to turn this ship around against the currents then." She ran her hand along the dragon's side, shaking her head softly. "There will be irreparable damage to the island already by then."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Fishlegs said brightly, rummaging through his fanny pack. "I've got a dragonroot antidote in here somewhere."

"You…you found an antidote?!"

"Yeah, though I wouldn't say we 'found' it exactly; having dragons and a dracomorph that are immune to the stuff helped, and we were able to synthesize a formula that works. There are plants that work too, but they're harder to find. Now where…ah, there they are!"

He pulled a small case out of his pack and unzipped it, grabbing out a carefully capped syringe from within. Popping the tip off, he tapped it to remove excess air, and looked to Toothless as Hiccup cut the shackles on the Eruptodon. "Can you help me find a vein?"

The Night Fury squeezed in next to Mala, who scooted out of the way as she looked on in curiosity, and began sniffing over the Eruptodon. After a short search, he reached up and pointed between a pair of larger scales with a paw.

"Here."

Fishlegs moved forward, carefully angling the needle between the thick scales and slipping it under the skin. Pushing the plunger, he slowly administered the serum, and then withdrew before shuffling back rapidly. "Every dragon is different, but he'll probably wake up in a couple of minutes," he warned. "He's probably gonna be pretty cranky too, kidnapped and drugged like he's been." Realizing what he'd just said so bluntly, Fishlegs shot an apologetic sideways glance at Mala, who simply remained stoic, trying not to show a reaction.

A predicted, the Eruptodon began to stir shortly, eyes opening in a slow, weary flicker as he glanced around. Catching sight of Mala and the two Vikings first through his hazy vision, the beady red orbs flared open angrily and he snarled as he moved to try balancing upon his feet again, showing off black-streaked, powerful teeth.

::Trapper fools!:: he roared. ::That you take me from my home and believe you will escape unscathed, provoke me to anger and encounter its burn!:: His massive jaws opened wide and an ominous glow appeared at the back of his throat.

"No, no, wait! We're not hunters!" Hiccup shouted, stepping in front of the Eruptodon at point-blank range despite Toothless' protest and waving his hands desperately. "We're friends, and we're getting you out of here! One of us is from your island; don't you recognize her?"

The dragon paused, still not with his vision cleared but stalled at receiving a direct reply to his words. His mouth slowly closed. ::You…understand this language?:: he queried, leaning forward and only now noting the other two draconic figures in the room, moving to protect their riders.

Hiccup nodded placidly. "Yes, I understand you," he replied. "I've understood Dragonese for several years now. We're not going to hurt you, okay? I was the one who cut the chains, Fishlegs over there treated you for the drug the hunters used on you, and you should recognize Mala who helps protect your home. We're here to bring you back."

The Eruptodon blinked several times, his vision finally starting to clear as he processed this sudden turn of events, before looking over at Mala. Sure enough, he did recognize her as a regular visitor to the cavern in his volcano, and so closed his eyes and bowed forward, brushing his snout against Hiccup.

::Forgive me the misunderstanding then, young human,:: he crooned. ::In my years I have never experienced such an occurrence; perhaps my reaction was harsher than need be toward you.::

::You didn't know you were going to wake up to a rescue, and considering the blockheads who trussed you up earlier I think it's understandable,:: Toothless reassured, loosening up now that Hiccup wasn't in immediate danger. ::Let's get out of here though, shall we? Open air is a lot better than this cramped ship's hold.:: He gestured away with his wings, and the Eruptodon moved to slowly follow, stumbling slightly from the residual effects of the dragonroot but soon ambling without issue down the corridor.

As the dragons began to chat amongst each other, Mala looked over to Hiccup as they followed behind and gave a huff of amusement. "Had I known what surprises would be in store for me today, and in such a short time, I would have ordered my guards to stay well away from the forests," she said. "Animals that speak and act as we do, reptiles that can change their size at will, a Viking that can speak with dragons, tales of a man who can transform into those same great beasts…though fascinating as it all is, I much prefer the calmer life we have possessed on Drekki I believe."

"You don't know the half of it either," Hiccup laughed. "Though it's easier when the surprises come one at a time, and you get used to it after a while. It's certainly not a life for everyone but…well, when God moves I think he chooses the people best suited to handle the stress."

"God? You believe in only one? Not the many of historical Norse heritage?"

Another chuckle escape the Viking. "Well, we did once," he admitted, "but then Hawken came along with a staggering amount of evidence to the contrary following him, and then we actually met the guys those legends were based off of. Turns out they were a group of gifted individuals like many of us, sooo…" he shrugged. "Things have changed a lot for us."

They neared the stairs, and as the Eruptodon began to climb them Hiccup's attention was drawn to him again. "Does he have a name?" he asked, nodding to the dragon.

Mala shrugged. "We have always called him a protector, as he's been there as long as we have preventing our culture from destruction, but we never named him ourselves, owing to our views of letting dragons be as they may," she explained.

::Erebus.::

"What?" Hiccup asked, looking back to the dragon now glancing over his shoulder at the Viking.

::My name is Erebus,:: the Eruptodon replied again, ::named after the great mountain my sire dwells in to the far east.::

The answer brought a smile to Hiccup's face, and he nodded in a half-bow. "Well, glad to finally have a proper introduction; my name's Hiccup," he said. "Mala, if you wish you can call him Erebus; he's had a name this whole time, just no means of telling you."

"Then it is my pleasure, Erebus," Mala replied, smiling and bowing slightly to the dragon as well.

They emerged onto the deck to the sight of Jake still holding Ryker, and Embron and the raptors were standing guard over the disarmed and variably conscious crew, but no sign of the rest of their group.

"Ugh, we really aren't here for exploration," Hiccup groused. "Where'd they go?"

"Maybe they found something related to Tsefan?" Fishlegs posed hopefully, causing Toothless' ears to perk up.

"They dragged one of the crew off to interrogate," Jake answered, "since this one won't tell us a thing." The rattler looked down at Ryker. "Shame we can't just shoot him and be done with it."

"You know why we can't, tempting as even I'll admit the idea is," Hiccup sighed.

"Well, at least we got the dragon back. Maybe that'll set you back enough to give us an edge, eh trapper?"

The hunter didn't respond, looking ahead with a stony glare. His gaze did flicker to the side though when the door to the cabin area opened and a very haggard looking young man came stumbling out, desperately leaning away to avoid the knife held to his back. The wielder of said knife sauntered out, an unsurprisingly indecipherable expression worn by her.

"Well, that wasn't as informative as we were hoping," Holly mused, "but other than whatever Ryker knows, word of Tsefan hasn't come this way which probably means our best bet is still back up north."

"Which means we came all this way just to turn right back around," Nick grumped, sighing dramatically as he gestured out at the middle distance. "So far, so little to do…"

"Shut up. Just be glad you're not the one doing the flying," Nara quipped, coming up behind him and pushing him aside. Then she looked up. "I see you found the Eruptodon; are we to vacate the area now and return him and Mala to the island?"

"Yep," Hiccup replied, "as soon as we all get saddled up. Although," he meandered over to Ryker and Jake, "I do have to ask you one thing Ryker: with all the other possible lucrative business ventures you and your brother could have pursued, why choose the kind you will be challenged on over its base for as long as you ever follow it?"

Ryker looked at him unemotionally for several moments, before a wicked smile cracked his visage. "There are things of value you acquire in no other way," he replied. "Morality is a subject of personal views, not a hard rule; you see it wrong, but all it is, is a means to an end. Harvest the beasts, appease the masses, and keep you busy long enough to manage it. Just another struggle among thousands to choose from." Twisting to look up at Jake, he continued, "After all, you can speak, but you are still just a snake, a lowly serpent despised by the world."

Jake's eyes flared bright, but one glance at Hiccup forced him to reign in his temper. Ryker couldn't be hurt, not severely, not until they found Tsefan, and it pained him to have no other options but to uncoil and push him roughly to the side before slithering over to Meatlug. "All he wants is to rile us up," he growled, coiling on the saddle. "We're getting nothing else outta him, so let's get out of here before he makes it worse."

Hiccup nodded, turning to Toothless and climbing on before offering a hand to Mala. "He's right," he said, seeing her temptation in her eyes to walk over an slug Ryker as clearly as if she'd actually done it. "Let's leave this godless ship before anything else sets one of us off. Erebus, can you fly safely?"

The Eruptodon flared its wings, testing them before he nodded.

"Good. You take off first, head northwest, and the rest of us will follow." Hiccup turned again, making sure everything was in place, and then couldn't help but take one last look at Ryker. "And you can mark my words," he growled, "once we find Tsefan, and we _will,_ your trade will end in the most devastating manner I can think of to enact. I'll make sure it hurts."

Toothless punctuated the threat with a savage hiss, his crests splitting and glowing, before he took off as the last of the group, buffeting Ryker and his crew with the backwash of his wings.

* * *

He knew it was futile, but Ryker was still hit with the great temptation to pick up a bola and throw it at the dragons as they vacated the region of the ship if only to let out his frustrations at this setback. While things would still run as they always had, without a new base off the standard trade routes their hoped-for deadline would be pushed out weeks at least, more if any other unexpected conflicts occurred. Viggo wanted everything in place so production could begin en masse in a few weeks, but by necessity it might take months without a hidden stopoff where the product could be safely raised, harvested, and extracted.

Any dealings with living objects were always fraught with the possibility of unexpected consequences, as nature never tended to bow to man's whims; here alone was the one place Ryker was liable to agree with Hiccup (loathe as he was to think it, and never admit it out loud). The search for precious minerals and metals would be a trade they would probably excel at, and could use dragons to their advantage without the cursed riders getting in the way as often if at all, or their grand trap-building skill could be marketed for other hunting or even architecture endeavors.

But, Ryker and his brother still wouldn't choose any other option; they already dabbled in other areas as they needed. And dragons were the ones that brought in money in spades, dead or alive. There was a reason for this, they had decided long ago: dragons were beasts feared by many and for good reason. They were not supposed to be ridden, and no matter how intelligent they were they were still animals all the same. The great whales Ryker had tried his hand at hunting proved this, or for blast's sake those talking mammals that had shown up with the riders were perfect examples of intelligent creatures that were unquestionably still animals. No other wielded the skills mankind had, no other directed the course of the world. Their spot on top, using all others as resources as they deemed necessary was an earned right, and the hunters' craft was a position almost no other merchant group had ever attempted to exploit, so lack of competition was another pressing support for their views.

He turned to enter the captain's room, darkly glaring at the crew as he walked by. They dared not interfere after they had just proved useless in keeping the Eruptodon on board, and gave him plenty of room as he passed. Ryker didn't care what the Riders had said either; in his mind, interference was interference, no matter the guise, and so Viggo would know about this. Hopefully, he decided, they'd choose a decently painful punishment for the Night Fury in return.

But there was something else Viggo needed to know as well: the two mammals couldn't be from anywhere else but Narnia, and they posed an entirely different risk to the plan now. They might recognize the key to the hunters' great plan, and if they did they might lead the riders to a solution against it. That fox especially disturbed him. Ryker could have sworn he had seen the vulpine before, decades ago when he was a boy, but the eyes and attitude were unique and he could not possibly have looked that young now. A relative, perhaps, but the risks were all the same.

The shipshand in the room squealed in startled surprise as Ryker slammed the door open, before hurriedly trying to compose himself.

"Sir! I…I heard the commotion outside. Did something esc-"

"Shut up and get the relay started," Ryker snapped, cutting him off. "Get a channel to the station for Viggo, and one to the Calormen traders!"

"Yes sir!"

"And quit shivering or I'll dump you in the ocean myself."

"Sorry sir."

* * *

The volcano was already turning violent by the time they returned, throwing out sputters of lava on all sides and oozing even out of the cavern entrance the Drekki people had made. Erebus wasted no time diving straight into the fray, setting off a fountain of red that spewed high, but fortunately did not fall toward the forest or village. Several minutes later, a greater geyser erupted from the mountain's side as the Eruptodon tunneled a new vent toward the ocean, and a voluminous river of fire flowed out, calming the chaos inside.

As most of the riders watched this proceed, Mala directed Hiccup around the island, finding and reassuring dragons that had been disturbed by the sudden change in a volcanic behavior. Though she certainly wouldn't admit it out loud, Hiccup could tell she was already overcoming her initial fear of flight and the inhibitions she'd had toward actually interacting with local dragons on any close level. In return, as they headed for the village after gathering the other riders again, several wild dragons followed them back. The group came in low to land, and as they did so the Snaptrapper they had spotted earlier in the day lay her heads around Mala as she stepped off of Toothless, begging for her attention. The change was not lost in the least among Mala's people either.

"You return with the dragons following you like pups," Throc commented as he walked up, looking suspiciously at his leader. "Is this some great trick to win you over after a show of supposed trust or were they telling the truth fully?"

"No, Throc, not a trick in the slightest," Mala answered, smiling slightly as she tentatively caressed the nearest head of the dragon encircling her. "Perhaps we should begin accepting wider perspectives; this one at least made me realized we have been overlooking a great wealth of truths, and that it could have cost us dearly in the same thread." She glanced at Hiccup, a frown appearing for a moment before evaporating. "I still hold no dragon should be forced to do as it does not please, but perhaps what they please is not so limited as we believed. I doubt I would have gained this apparent friend otherwise. You mentioned it before; what was her name again, Hiccup?"

"Iris."

"Iris. Thank you. Now Throc, we have a great deal of work to do here; we must provide a funeral for our lost guard upon the mountain, and there is the risk the hunters may return. I know what they look like now however and what they may attempt, so that we do not miss our quarry next time."

She sent an apologetic glance to all the riders and company, before her face turned stern again. "Oh, and tell Minerva to prepare a room; after what has occurred the least we can offer for our allies here is a place to rest and recover from this incident."

"Uh, that really isn't necessary," Hiccup tried to dissuade, but Mala shook her head.

"I'll not hear it, Hiccup," she stated flatly. "After what we did I insist we repay you, especially as you moved to help us despite it, and you may have dragons but the nearest land from here is several days by sea; it must be at least several hours therefore by flight. If you are in fact intending on following the hunters when you leave, you will need your rest, and perhaps assistance in ways like supplies or information, and we may be able to give you items of use in this manner but not if you were to depart immediately."

"Gonna side with her on this one Hiccup; never wise to turn down free bed and breakfast," Nick chirped, grinning at the Viking before Judy elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow! Hey, you can't argue, can you?"

Hiccup gave the fox a pointed sideways glare, before sighing. "Alright…we'll accept your generosity Mala," he relented. "Thank you."

Mala nodded, satisfied smile appearing, but it didn't last. A look of realization and discomfort appeared and she gestured for them to follow her as she turned to walk down the path heading into the heart of the village. "It has been a very long time since we connected with those from the rest of the world, other than conflicts with the hunters or rare trading ventures of course," she said. "Though perhaps that is somewhat of a mistake. But, the rest of the world still seems to manage to reach us here. Dragons come and go, and though we have stood by letting them be as they may be, recently there was one challenge to this notion other than your presence." She stopped with her hand on the door of a long, wide structure, and sighed. "Perhaps this should have been my first indication that we cannot truly live in peace with one another by only giving space, for they gave us no space."

She leaned forward and pushed the door open, letting it swing wide. Meshed windows high up allowed light in to comfortably illuminate the interior, revealing what appeared to be a storage house hastily converted into what almost looked like a stable, of sorts. However, instead of horses, or even free-roaming dragons as there were on Berk, each occupied stall held a thoroughly restrained dragon, many with limiting muzzles on their jaws. At the opening of the door, several of them swept their furious gazes to the visitors, chains snapping taut at their exertions.

Holly's eyes flickered to Nick, fearing he would have a bad reaction to seeing the muzzles on the dragons. She was partly right; the fox was clearly disturbed by the sight, his ears pinned back and the corners of his mouth turned down in the beginnings of a grimace, but luckily he was keeping himself in check. Judy noticed too, placing a paw on his arm in reassurance which Nick covered with his own, returning the gesture with a smile of thanks.

"Wait, so yer telling us you have dragons chained up at the same time as you accused the Riders of enslaving us?!" Jake queried accusingly, tail starting to shake. "You'd better have one hell of a good explanation for this hypocrisy."

"Our hands were forced," Mala explained, looking at him in challenge. "A few months ago dragons from beyond our island began showing up here and attacking us and the other dragons that lived here, directly targeting our village. Every now and again a cantankerous individual is normal, and expected, but if they can't be driven away the restraints and an application of our sedative serum pacified them enough to encourage them to move on after they came around. These dragons however…they refused to be driven off, and once restrained they did not respond to the sedative. They remained violent, and a danger to my people, so I was forced to have them placed here where we try to care for them until an answer comes, but none have shown any signs of regaining their natural behavior." She looked to Hiccup, a worried expression developing alongside a sliver of hopeful pleading. "With your experience with dragons, have you ever seen a condition such as this? They are not simply aggressive; they seem to have truly gone mad."

Hiccup looked to Toothless, who nodded and carefully approached the nearest dragon, a young Windstriker clad in metallic steel blue scales. ::Can you understand me? We are friends here,:: he crooned, eyes wide and ears up in a placating move. What is your name?

The Windstriker cocked its head toward the Night Fury, eyes widening slightly as its nostrils flared. It leaned forward a touch, almost cautiously, and Toothless looked reassuringly into its eyes.

Then a shiver ran down his spine, and he jerked backward only a second before the Windstriker lunged, unable to bite or claw with its restraints in place but nevertheless trying vehemently to reach Toothless and tear him apart, screeching through the muzzle with vicious intent.

"There's no one there," Toothless gasped, eyes flaring open in concern. "That's a rabid animal, not a sapient dragon. There's no intelligence showing."

"But dragons can't contract rabies, and this isn't an Alpha's influence," Fishlegs practically whined.

"Doesn't mean it's impossible for them to come down with something similar of their own," Astrid countered, before her eyes snapped wide too. "Get the other dragons out of here! If it's a sickness we don't want them catching it!"

"If it were something contagious I would have noticed it already," Toothless placated, shaking his head, "and Mala would have seen the dragons that live here turning mad too. Dragons release pheromones other dragons can pick up on when ill; after all, we don't want to get each other sick especially in a nest. It could still be a disease, but not one that is transmissible. But, I don't…Judy? What are you doing?"

Judy had stepped forward between the others, eyeing the dragon with curiosity as if it were a puzzle to be solved, and her nose was twitching rapidly. After a moment she looked back at the rest of them, trying to connect pieces in her head. "Do you smell any chemicals?" she asked. "Other organic matter perhaps? I don't know how strong a dragon's sense of smell is."

"Or you could ask the snake who can pick out near anything," Jake huffed, flicking his tongue. "I'm not picking up anything unusual though; dragons, people, that stuff they drugged us with here, and a couple of musky mammals, but that's all."

"Oh come on, everyone loves the smell of fox," Nick grinned, earning a roll of eyes from nearly everyone.

"Only if you had been doused in potpourri recently," Holly shot back at him.

"Aaanyway," Judy drawled, "nothing else?"

"No," Jake confirmed. "Why?"

"Because I know there are some plants and natural poisons that drive other animals mad sometimes," the lapine explained. "Couple of things like that exist where Nick and I are from, so I would be curious to know if there is anything you're aware of that dragons could get into here."

"The worst I know if is dragonroot," Fishlegs shrugged, opening a notebook pulled from his pack and flipping through it, "but dragons get violent over finding it, and passed out like a drunk after actually eating it. Nothing with lasting effects."

"And there is nothing on the island that could have caused this," Mala added. "Otherwise, we would certainly have seen it long before now."

Judy sighed, and shrugged. "Well, if you can't smell anything maybe it is a sickness; I hope it doesn't spread if so."

"It wouldn't surprise me if the hunters have something to do with it though," Holly toned, eyes flicking warily over the Windstriker and to the other occupied stables. "It strikes me as way too convenient that we're out here looking for Tsefan and we just happen to run across dragons going mad, not a couple hours after dealing with them kidnapping a dragon." She glanced at Hiccup. "If they really have contacts all the way out to Asia and Africa, I don't doubt they found something there and brought it over. But, different topic, I also don't think we'll be able to get anything else from standing around in here, and I don't know about you but if I'm going to think any more I need to eat something before I do."

"I second that notion," Nick agreed, holding up his hand with a raised finger. "I could really go for a berry bowl right now. Can't think too well on empty for long."

"You ever think with anything else besides your stomach?" Judy huffed in exasperation. "Incorrigible fox."

"You know you love me."

"Do I know that?"

"I would hope so; it's painfully obvious to everyone else in the room," Holly interjected, before laughing at the flustered expression Judy wore, worsened by the continued smirk Nick was bearing.

Mala too held back an amused snort at the scene, before smiling. "No need to worry," she said, "we have plenty to offer, thanks to the fertility of this island. You are welcome to dine as you please at the hall. Just follow me, and we can try to discuss this more over a meal."

"No need to tell me twice," Nick said brightly, following right behind her as she left.

"Ugh, now you'll just encourage him to stuff his face," Judy groaned as she caught up with him, before glaring at the paw that came to rest on her shoulder.

"I'll make sure to leave you something Carrots, don't worry," Nick reassured mockingly, his grin still getting wider. "Wouldn't want this cute little bunny to be starved out before we"-

YELP!

"Ow! Judy!"

"Warned you about that word Nick," the rabbit shot back smugly as she continued sauntering out of the stable. "You still don't have a free pass to use it."

"What, it's true! Okay, how about adorable?"

"Nick!"

* * *

 **A/N- Lots of hints dropping like flies around here...anyone piecing any of the mysteries together yet?**

 **So, what did you think? Personally I feel like this chapter was a bit choppy, but it's done and we can move on. Which reminds me: not sure if I can keep with 2 weeks updates (though I'll try); every 3 weeks is a more likely possibility. Life is just too busy at the moment. But, we certainly won't be stopping, and the excitement should only build from here.**

 **As always, lets me know your thoughts, predictions, theories etc. in your reviews! And keep an eye out for updates on my other main story as well, Closed Doors!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	15. Chapter 14: Second Side

Chapter 14

Second Side

/

 _Everyone thinks they know the truth_

 _That there is nothing more to tell_

 _What they said is solid proof_

 _That they are right and righteous as well_

 _But every story comes at a cost_

 _It cannot be told alone_

 _For even when there are only two men_

 _There are three tales to hone_

 _There is the story of either soul_

 _The events they know took place_

 _But then the third is greater still_

 _For it's the truth that neither faced_

 _-0-_

In our world there is a war over the resources of the land, between those who wish to exploit it solely for humanity's benefit and believing that they have the right to every last tree and creature, and those who see the value of nature itself in its most pristine state alone. The ones trying to find a balance are caught between both sides too, so no one finds rest and nothing is solved. Struggles occur every minute as our population grows and mouths must be fed, jobs must be provided to feed said mouths, and space allocated to live. To flip the coin however, so does every other organism on the planet need its own space, and places where untouched land in all of its primal glory are an increasingly rare gem indeed.

Upon the Vikings' earth however, the world's population is still miniscule to ours by comparison, technology kept from advancing and improving the quality of life for many and wars constantly fought for glory or in feuds, not to mention diseases still rampant in many places (I had long since stopped wondering why none of us ever picked up those scourges of old as we traveled, but it seemed that here, the illness that killed most was nothing but an inconvenience back home). Even near the most populated locations like Rome, Alexandria, Tehran and others, it's never a great distance before one finds themselves in untouched nature, be it the grand northern or tropical forests or open grasslands and marshes unmarred by human hands and in appearance the same as it was thousands of years prior. It was one of the many reasons I was drawn to spend so much time there rather than back home.

Such was the earth we traversed now, the low mountains we skirted as we traveled away from Láng Chéng (as we came to find out it was called) blanketed by thick deciduous forest, the sounds of a myriad forms of wildlife drifting up to our ears from below. I readily recognized the calls of hundreds of birds, faint pattering of deer running through the foliage, and even the calls of a handful of wild dragons scattered across the near peaks. Once, I caught what I was almost sure was the howl of a pack of wild wolves somewhere in the distance as well, a lonely, somber song that hung over the landscape

The only thing that was missing, and I didn't miss it much: human encroachment. Roads were sparse, buildings nonexistent, and even hunting trails were only scattered; we were truly alone for the time being.

"Wow, they're way out there aren't they?" Snotlout mused, slumping forward onto his hands. "Who wants to set up shop out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Says the Viking from the island in the middle of the ocean," Orha snarked. "You wouldn't want to locate camp right by your enemies. And as they have dragons, no need to be even moderately close; it gives them an upper hand."

"But, it does bring up a few questions," Natasha said. "Whatever the issue with the savage dragons, why are places so far apart being affected equally, and why did the escaped ones from the riders' village travel all the way back to Mononoke's home to wreak havoc? I mean, plenty of other small towns and such almost the same distance away to ruin, or even just the rider's village itself to attack. They were held there after all."

"They likely were not so distant from one another in prior decades," Fenrir rebutted. "The Alagaesian riders come from a distance further south originally, but they spread and settled where they had trading access to other settlements." He paused, and looked down at me with concern. "That will likely have instilled in them a strong resentment of Mononoke's people and wolves for another reason: retreating further away will have cut off their trades significantly and limited their access to necessary items."

I sighed, knowing the wolf on my back was entirely right. Combine that resentment they undoubtedly held with the fact that he was a wolf...I was very hesitant about bringing him with us, but I was even more concerned about having Fenrir stay back at Láng Chéng where he would be alone near Mononoke. Hence, he was with us again on this inquiry trip.

"Alright, so first focus is make sure that they know we're here as completely unassociated with Mononoke and her allies, and are trying to answer our own questions," I said. "Being most of us can speak Dragonese, that should help."

"Yeah, but it leaves Ember and I out to dry if you growl everything out," Snotlout huffed.

You might wish to be glad of that, Fireworm chuckled under him, drawing grins from some of the rest of us.

Snotlout noticed. "What? What'd you say, Fireworm? What'd she say?"

"Wasn't important," Sasha brushed off.

"Yeah, 'cause that coming from you _really_ reassures me."

"Alright, you guys settle down," Ember snapped, shaking her head and pointing forward. "There's a settlement approaching, and we need to be on our best behavior for whoever it might be, especially if it's the riders. Hawken, can you see anything this far out?"

I was already looking forward, Griffin vision coming into play as I picked out the details that were still miles away. Smoke from chimneys and open fires could be seen lazily drifting up between the peaks of two rather craggy mountains, the eastern end of the narrow valley hemmed in by a wide dam that slowed the river snaking down through it and created a narrow reservoir. The lake's shoreline boasted dozens of buildings, ranging from lean-tos to large storehouses, all built of a bright reddish wood and relatively new looking.

The most important detail of course, was that over it all flew dragons of a dozen species. Raincutters and Shockjaws (rather a surprise the latter, being this far from the ocean) patrolled the lakeshores, Lung Dragons and Thornridges appeared to stand guard on the myriad rock outcrops that lined the mountain slopes, and Alagaesian dragons, Shovelhelms, Threadtails, and several others walked the paths of the town itself, mingling freely with people from ethnic backgrounds seemingly as equally diverse.

Their standard routine shifted however, when I head the call of several Thornridges ring out, faint to my ears due to the distance but no less recognizable, and the inhabitants began to rush about, disappearing into buildings and reappearing wearing leather vests and armor, siding up with their dragons defensively.

"Well, it's definitely the place we're looking for," I sighed, "and they know we're here. Barriers on people, just in case we have to defend ourselves first."

"Not looking friendly, huh?" Silas mused back, pressing against his barrier gem just like the rest.

"Well, what would you expect?" Natasha quipped back. "Can't be the easiest life out here, and their advantage against land invaders is a disadvantage with aerial visitors like us."

Dragons roared out a hundred warnings as we neared, soaring low (but not too low, wary of aquatic species in the lake as we were) over the dam and reservoir before landing in a large open space lined with storehouses at the edge of the village. I touched down gently, as did Orha and Amethyst, to try and promote a friendly approach, before we all winced at Fireworm's very firm landing, punctuated by a dismissive snort. One by one we turned to glare at her and Snotlout, the latter putting on a confused but guilty expression and the former ignoring us.

"What?" he asked worriedly.

"Gently," Amethyst hissed. "We don't want to be giving them more reason not to trust us, thanks."

Further conversation ground to a halt as two dragons, a Grapple Grounder and a Hackatoo, appeared from between the buildings nearby and took up stances in front of us, wings flared and tails coiled as they bared their teeth in extra warning. On their backs, two riders of middle-Asian decent dismounted and pointed at us with blades clearly made of pure Gronckle Iron.

"Bùyào zài láile, nǐmen bù shúxī de qíshǒu hé nǐmen de yěshòu (Come no further, both you unfamiliar riders and your beasts)," they spoke in pointed Mandarin. "Chénshù nǐ zài zhèlǐ de lǐyóu."

I looked up at Fenrir for translation, and for him to give the signal that we did not otherwise speak that language.

"They're asking our purpose for being here," he said, carefully stepping off of my back as I knelt down and locking eyes with the Grapple Grounder rider. "Do you speak Common Tongue?" he asked. "I am the only one here who can convey Mandarin."

"You can speak?" the rider, a young man, queried suspiciously, gripping his sword tighter. "Have you relations with the devil she-wolf of the coastal kingdom?"

"We are not affiliated in any way with Mononoke, other than having spoken to her first last night to learn of the conflict in this region," I said, drawing their attention to the oversized Night Fury Fenrir had been riding. "This is Fenrir Asgard, guardian of Europe and the North alongside his family, and ally to us, the Riders and Dragons of Berk."

"Of you I have never heard of," the Hackatoo's rider, an older black-haired woman, interjected. "Nor have I ever heard of Night Furies that speak."

"All those that exist now can, thanks to me," I said, "but I am no Night Fury. My name is Hawken Carlton, a guardian of two earths, and I am here seeking a kidnapped dragon and trying to answer a grave question that arose upon our arrival in this area."

As I spoke, I stood up on my hind legs and demorphed, garnering dumbfounded looks from all around us as a black-clad young man replaced the imposing reptile present before. "I don't know if you know who the Mystique is," I continued, "but I am the inheritor of a gift she carried. We are here to speak with whoever is in charge here so that we can understand all sides of this conflict, as we did with Mononoke in Láng Chéng."

Silence cloaked the area for a moment as the villagers still processed my sudden change, before a guttural roar sounded and the two dragon/rider pairs standing in front of us moved away, permitting two more dragons to land. One was a red Lung Dragon with a hardened looking blond man on its back, and the other, the green-hued Alagaesian dragon and his brown-haired rider that had been at the raid the night before. Now in the daylight and less distracted by surrounding dangers, I could see just how unusual this dragon really was: just as it had appeared before, rather than only marked by grand feathers on the wings and neck alone this dragon had nearly all of his scales replaced by downy feathers, and even his horns were softened into mere feathery tufts, giving him an almost huggable appearance were it not for his size and penetrating glare. The look in his eyes, matching that of his rider, very well matched the gaze.

"I am Peter Talhara," the rider said, sliding off. "I see you took heed of my words last night, and if you swear you mean no harm I may tell my friends here to lower their weapons so we can speak on more amenable terms."

I nodded and gave a short bow of acquiescence. "I promise you we are only seeking answers and trying to settle things, nothing more."

Peter stood motionless for a moment, before his expression softened and he gave a nod to those around us. The atmosphere immediately lost most of its tension as the other riders sheathed their swords ad stood back, the dragons relaxing accordingly. Similarly, I could sense Snotlout and Sasha both giving sighs of relief, and Fenrir deflated a touch next to me.

"I caught your name already, Hawken," Peter said, before gesturing to the blond that had arrived with him. "This is my second in command, Jaetsu Lian and his dragon Caelia, and this, my dragon Elliot."

"Elliot?"

"Yes, that is correct."

A giggle involuntarily escaped me before I clamped down on myself, drawing a strange look from Peter. "Is something amusing here?" he asked suspiciously.

I shook my head. "No, no. Well, yes, but it would be a really long story and not relevant to anything at present. You two remind me of someone is all." Giving an apologetic smile, I took a deep breath before continuing. "Okay, so you saw us last night at the raid, Peter, and you know we went to speak with Mononoke afterward. We have heard her side of the tale concerning what's happened here over the past two and a half decades, and now we would like to know yours; with two sides the truth is almost always somewhere between them. And perhaps, familiar also as you are with dragons, you might be able to help us locate the Night Fury we seek in the process."

"If I reveal to you what we know, how may I be assured that I can trust you not to sell us out on anything crucial?" Peter asked warily. "You came here with a tiger and even a wolf by your side and appeared to us first in a raid where the wolves' allies attack us."

"Hey, tiger I might be, but these two are my sisters," Sasha protested, jerking his head toward Teshra and his paw to Amethyst.

I nodded in turn to Sasha's claim. "Indeed, Sasha is sibling to dragons, and has loyalty by family ties to them and I," I affirmed. "The wolf is Fenrir Asgard as I said earlier to the other riders, guardian of the north and close friend of ours, and he too has a dragon that he considers a brother; a great Oceanguard who spawned many legends. If that doesn't appease you, Peter, then I submit to you the promise as heir to gifts of the Mystique; ask your dragons, at least one of them should be familiar with her if you aren't."

Peter did look to Elliot, who shook his head in confusion, and then to Caelia whose eyes had in fact widened in recognition of the title.

You inherited the gifts of the shapeshifter? the Lung Dragon asked me curiously, inciting a grin from me.

Quite, I replied, and oh the adventures it's sent me on since.

Caelia responded with a smile, before she looked at Peter and nodded affirmation. Seemingly assured, Peter gave us a slightly warmer smile and offered his hand, which I stepped forward and took.

"Welcome then," he said, "and I hope you understand our distrust of foreigners, even those with other dragons. It's hard enough relying on anyone of this land outside our own ranks. I won't speak just standing out here however; if you will follow me, things can be taken care of in better quarters." He turned, gave a nod to Jaetsu and Caelia, and trotted off down a well-beaten road between the warehouses lining the lakeshore. We followed, and the Lung Dragon and her rider came up behind us.

Wary looks filtered our way from every direction, dragons and people halting momentarily in their daily activities or putting away of armor to send us distrusting stares. I couldn't care less, and neither could most of the rest of us since we walked peacefully with their apparent leader, but after what we'd already seen it was little surprise that Fenrir had pinned his ears down, tail slightly tucked as if he could avoid being seen (large as he was though, that would never happen).

"This is the most out of place I have felt in a very long time," he muttered dejectedly, prompting me to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't appease everyone Fen," I said, "but you're trusted by us and I'm sure we can get through to Peter, so don't feel too concerned. You're with friends."

His ears perked up slightly at that, and he gave me a small smile in thanks, relaxing under my hand, but I could feel through his fur that he was still tense. I couldn't blame him though; every compliment could come my way and I still managed to keep myself in the dark sometimes.

Built in a valley as it was, the village was long over wide and split further down the middle by the river that fed the reservoir, draining off the interior mountains; it was probably better classified a large creek, but still. We approached what looked like an ornate house on the bank, and Elliot leaned over his rider to clamp his mouth around a modified door handle. A quick yank back, and both the door and its counter on the other side swung open and outward, connected by a system of pulleys just visible inside the frame.

"What Hiccup wouldn't give to look that over for a while," Ember chuckled, also regarding the pulleys as we followed Peter inside upon his gestures, and as Jaetsu and Caelia slipped in Elliot closed up the doors behind us and moved to join his rider again. The room we found ourselves in was massive, a table with ornately carve chairs set to one side and leaving the open majority of the space clearly made to accommodate dragons. Rock slabs lined one half, modified "nests" of hay and branches the other, but all more or less also arranged to face the table.

"Please, take a seat," Peter offered, pulling out a chair of his own at the far end of the table. The rest of us followed, drawing amusedly perplexed expressions as the three raptors took chairs and Sasha morphed semi-bipedally to take one as well next to me. As the dragons settled nearby, watching the proceeds carefully, we turned to Peter and watched as a series of expressions melted from one to the other for a few moments on his face.

"I…you are perhaps the strangest band I have ever heard of," he admitted, chuckling with slight embarrassment under our gazes.

"Hah! You should see the rest then," Snotlout cackled. "Like the twins? Biggest pair of looneys there is, 'cept maybe"-

WHACK!

"Ow! Hey!"

"They're no worse than you most of the time," Rachel quipped, drawing her tail back as she settled in her seat again. "At least they calmed down for the most part when they got married. But I'm worried there's no hope of that for you."

"You saying I'm never going to get married?"

"Well, color me impressed, you got it in one."

"Alright, enough!" Ember snapped, the tips of her hair beginning to glow. "Great first impression we're making, thanks! My apologies Peter; be appreciative you don't deal with this every day."

Peter nodded in understanding. "Every place has a few though," he said, "so I'm not unfamiliar. But, time to focus I believe; you did not come here because you heard of our plight I will assume, as you mentioned yet another Night Fury?"

"My son was kidnapped by an association known as the Coalition of Hunters and Trappers, among other names," Amethyst answered, "and he was sent out to who-knows-where to keep us from interfering with their plans. We came this way to find him as we know their leader, a man named Viggo Grimborn, has influence even this far east in trades."

"Were they to be brought down it would be one less aggravation to us too," Jaetsu spoke up, tapping his fingers on the table. "They never bother us directly, partly due to our location here now and the abilities many Alagaesians have, but when their ships pass by they encourage our adversaries and they trap roaming dragons."

"Well, no question we're talking about the same group," Ember mused. "Good to hear we may not have come this way entirely for naught. Have you heard any rumors about Night Furies, or at least rare dragons, being transported to or through this area?"

"I'm afraid not," Peter replied. He gestured around vaguely. "If you haven't noticed we don't have many coastal ties anymore, and no major roads inland come terribly near here either, so we rarely see them at all anymore. They still occasionally show up near the dwellings of that blasted curse Mononoke and her allies though, when we must pass there for supplies or when word of a raid occurs."

I sighed. "So we'll have to keep searching. Alright then, to the other great concern we found when we passed that village last night: Peter, we know of what Mononoke believes to be the history of this conflict here, but what do you say of it? We all know those dragons were not acting under normal behavior, and something like that is the sort of misfortune the hunters would love to take full advantage of. Not to mention if it ever spreads to our home it would cause chaos and give them the exact sort of thing they'd love."

Peter deflated and nodded. "And they have taken advantage, at times, when Lady Ashira or Mononoke's men arrive before we can. A dragon dies, they come for the parts, or if one is injured they come for it alive. These incidents began around 25 years ago though, isolated events involving only a dragon or two ever so rarely. Back then we lived near the coast for trade and peace initiatives, barely a stone's throw from the lands Mononoke rules over. She was an enigma to us, a wolf that lived longer than just a few years and with powers we had only heard rumors of thanks to the dragons, so we wished to retain her good graces. Now knowing of you, I wonder if her abilities are somehow related."

"Ember was born with her gifts, and I inherited mine, both of the same source," I said, "from God. Evils give abilities too however, so Mononoke may have inherited hers and lost her way or she's a tool for conflicts; we don't know. I wish to believe the former, as she has good intentions within her somewhere, but she is blinded by power and anger right now."

"Right," Peter toned, clearly not in full agreement. I couldn't fault him yet either though. Then he shook his head. "Well, to return to the issue at hand: when the first dragons went mad she looked to us, as we were the ones who knew how dragons were supposed to behave and how to deal with those that didn't. Our interactions especially with the Alagaesian species like Elliot spans back centuries, but we had never seen this behavior. I'm sure you know what influences Alpha species have on un-bonded dragons, the mindless control that can appear, but this simply was not that. These dragons have gone truly feral, their sentience removed and aggression heightened to disturbing levels. They would attack anything that moved, even other dragons without care, and only settled to feed or drink if nothing else was near to distract them.

"Lady Ashira appeared one month when a dragon went feral just south of Láng Chéng, bringing with her weapons that Mononoke insisted on having as protection in case we could not handle the ferals, but that alliance also drove some of her people to take the matter into their own hands. We would capture the ferals, sedate them so they could be contained safely while we attempted to discover what was wrong, but nothing could be done if a guard with a gun reached them before we did. We begged Mononoke to let us deal with this so no lives were taken, and at first she agreed. We designed cages and houses to contain the ferals, study them safely so they could not escape, but we found no solutions to the problem."

Peter paused, and gave a heavy sigh. "A dragon that is sick with disease we can give herbs or extracts to heal or bring the Alagaesians to aide them, or a poisoned one an antidote, but we could find nothing of the sort. My father led this crusade as village head, with the greatest experience, and he and his dragon companion had seen a hundred different afflictions. But, even they found no answers. Worse, an un-bonded Alagaesian was one of the first dragons afflicted, and their natural healing did nothing. It did not wear off, and the ill dragons remained feral month after month, and eventually those months began stretching into years."

Peter turned to gaze at the dimly lit wall nearby, where a carefully maintained painting hung; it portrayed a man clearly of great stature, behind him a regal blue Alagaesian dragon poised with grace. "After three years with no answers, things truly took a turn down a dark path," he said softly. "Mononoke saw her trust in us as foolish, and began to turn to lady Ashira alone to provide protection. That failing trust was broken between us fully however, when one night we were awakened in a great cacophony. Someone had released the feral dragons, nearly all of them at once, and it had to be that they were released as no dragon can simply break out of those cages. Over a dozen savage dragons attacked us from within, and it took nearly an hour to recapture them. A few escaped though and attacked Láng Chéng as we were trying to rebuild what we'd lost, and were killed by Ashira's weapons. The guards we had posted at the holding rooms claimed that men dressed with Mononoke's armor had overpowered them and released the dragons, so my father led a company to Mononoke, demanding she explain and give recompense for betraying their agreement.

"The wolf refused him outright however, saying she knew nothing of such a betrayal and that our incompetence must have let the ferals escape, in turn bringing destruction to her home. She would not listen to our explanations, and in the heat of the moment my father drew his sword to make a point. He knew he could not harm Mononoke, and intended to call only her attention, but it was taken as a threat and one of Mononoke's guards fired on him, killing him there."

Silence fell as we processed this. Mononoke had mentioned conflicts of varying sorts, but she had certainly not mentioned that the leader of this community had been killed among the reasons that had ignited this fight. I shared a glance with Ember, silently acknowledging that we now had both sides needing to realize they had falsehoods in their witness.

"The incidents of feralism have only gotten worse since however," Peter continued after a moment. "We retreated from the coast to guard ourselves from attacks from Mononoke's forces as well as prepare our own for when we needed to defend ourselves or rescue dragons in danger. I took my father's place with Jaetsu to help me. We have nearly a hundred savage dragons contained currently, still trying to find an answer, including trying to figure out where they come from. Attacks and sightings occur mostly near the coastline, but savage dragons have appeared everywhere within our reach at times, flying in from far off or simply appearing in the forests. There is no pattern we can reliably find to source this. We are assailed at nearly every village raid by the wolves and soldiers to make things harder, and they seek to force us away from here entirely and back to Alagaesia where our ancestral traditions stemmed."

"Then something is not fitting here," I said. "There are dragons that can more or less read the emotions of others, can see when you lie, and when I spoke with Mononoke she said everything as if she fully believed it were true. Undoubtedly she left details out –she said nothing of the incident with your father for one- but she believes that you truly did turn into a threat, and that her decisions are the best for her domain. You may not agree, and neither can I entirely, but I cannot yet fault her here alone."

"What do you say then, perhaps, of her general, or Lady Ashira?" Jaetsu asked. "They are the ones that act out her orders."

I shrugged slightly. "Qiao? He follows orders and is hard-headed"-

"Not unlike some Vikings we know," Ember interjected with a smirk.

"-but that is all," I continued, shooting her a glare. "He would not incite a conflict if his intention is to protect his ruler. I have not interacted enough with Ashira to draw any conclusions about her, but I do find her suspect currently. Of what however, I don't know."

"You say the feral dragons are here?" Orha spoke up from nearby, his head rising as he worked something over in his mind. Peter nodded, and the Shadowracer posed, "Could we see one of them? A place of trade and discovery the coastal regions around here might be, but we may have encountered something you have not to cause this. Last night really wasn't enough time to draw a bead on what's going on with the dragons themselves."

"After two and a half decades of sending out couriers to search for answers and trying to track the traders that pass by, I doubt there's much that couldn't have come to our attention," Jaetsu said skeptically, but Peter looked contemplative.

"We don't know about all that the rest of the world could hold," he mused. "After all, we were not aware of these riders and their friends until now. Perhaps you can find something we missed, and any chance is worth taking at this point. The most recent ferals are held nearby." He stood up, and then paused. "I would prefer, however, only a few follow," he decided, "to maintain protection of both the dragons and you."

"Very well," I said. "Fenrir, Ember, Orha, you come with us; the rest of you wait here."

"Aww, I can't come help?" Teshra chirped, leaping up to Sasha's shoulder with a pleading expression.

"No, you stay here where the others can keep an eye on you while we're busy," I quipped, earning a huff of disappointment before the Terror was distracted by Sasha reaching up and ruffling her head.

"Hey! Stop that!"

Snorting at my proven point, I fell in behind Peter and Elliot once again and the three I had chosen following me as we exited the house. Along the way I couldn't help but start singing under my breath.

"Go north, go north with wings on your feet. Go north with the wind where the three rivers meet. There's an odd sort of clearing in a circle of trees, where the wild constellations shine one two and three"-

"Oh my god," Ember whispered, stifling a laugh as she stared at me. "That's who they remind you of."

"Don't tell me you don't see the resemblance either."

"Ugh, I can't miss it now. Damn it Hawken, you've got that song in my head too!"

I could only smile in return, and kept humming the song (and avoiding jabs from her elbow).

A short walk down the path and over the river led us to a far more fortified, metal-constructed building, and Peter nodded to a pair of guards at the nearest door, prompting them to step back and open the doors for us to pass within. It was well-designed, windows permitting light to reflect around the entire interior to adequately see the two rows of large, metal-barred cages that lined the walls but none of the spaces large enough for even a Terror to escape through. Floors of granite prevented any species capable of digging from escaping within, and the bars were not classic bronze or steel, but Gronckle Iron and alloys, strong enough to resist most fires or acids for at least moderate periods. Water bowls and feeding troughs were welded to the doors, and slabs for rest and sloping floors to deal with waste were also implicated. The only thing destroying the rather decent image was the fact that all the doors were locked shut, and the inhabitants within each cage were shackled to prevent violent retaliations at their captors.

We approached a figure I recognized very well from the night before, a dragon that would have been incredibly beautiful to behold in any other condition: Tan Qiao had called it a Shadehawk. It stood nearly ten feet tall, bipedal, with a long flexible tail ending in a grand spreading plume of feathers; a pair of claws adorned each wide, feathered wing, and the same plumage ran up the spine to culminate in a movable crest around the jowls and back of the head, trailing the middle of the forehead. All of it, washed in an iridescent greenish black, save the slit, cold teal eyes that stared out at us with no recognition or comprehension, only fury.

"It's painful, seeing her here," Ember said softly, looking with great empathy toward the dragon but garnering a questioning look from me.

"Her?"

"Yeah. You're the dracomorph and you can't tell that easily?"

"You must have a knack for it then."

"She is female," Peter confirmed, "and I agree, it pains me to shackle them like this. But if we –look out!"

The Shadehawk had lunged to the end of her bonds and let loose a great jet of emerald flames directly at us. Peter and Fenrir ducked out of the way, but Ember and Orha were unaffected and I raised a hand, quelling the fire and taking the power out of it.

"Don't worry," I chuckled, "fire isn't a worry for most of us. But I see what you mean; no dragon wastes its fire like that normally. Poor girl; rest for now." Leaning forward, I breathed out a pale mist straight into her snout. One angered breath in, and she collapsed to the floor, out cold. As soon as the aerosol dissipated, I gestured Peter forward. Cautiously, he approached the cage and, producing a key, unlocked it, letting the door swing open and permitting us entry. I immediately knelt down, running my hands over her neck and upper body, checking her vital signatures.

"Breathing normal, heart rate steady and predicted average for her size," I said, scrutinizing the dragon closely. "No clear signs of discoloration or a dulling of scales or feathers, no sloughing, uh…" I paused, taking a careful inhale as I modified my senses, and carefully opened one of the dragon's eyes, "…no distress pheromones either, and eyes are in slit mode but otherwise normal. I…there's nothing here to suggest this dragon is abnormal, just angry."

I sat back, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Ugh, of all the times I could use Fishlegs here; he catches things I miss often enough with stuff like this."

"I'm not picking anything up either, Hawken," Orha interjected, "and I've seen a lot in my travels. It's not demonic influence either, otherwise the sedative wouldn't have taken easy effect like that. It's something worldly."

I turned to Peter, who gave a helpless shrug. "Like I said," he toned, "twenty-five years and we never got an answer. The dragons simply live on as they do, though weakened of flying as we can't release them, and then the oldest die at their time Whatever it is however, is happening at increasing frequency, and we will soon have to leave here for safety's sake whether or not Mononoke has a hand in driving us away."

"You said that most of your reports of this were coastal?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Do you think that's because there are more people to see them there or because there's a possible cause?"

"Likely just more people; we never found anything to actually suggest otherwise."

"So nothing to say it could perhaps be a water or food source."

"It couldn't be," Fenrir disagreed. "Even if just seawater or something in it, with the number of dragon species that hunt or live there they would have seen constant feral cases, not sudden raids or individuals here and there, and you would likely have seen far more marine species here than the land-dwellers like this poor dragon."

No leads to tell us anything then, other than perhaps trying to trace who was really responsible for the breakouts that ruined the trusts of the Alagaesians and the wolf-allies (and that would be nigh-impossible with how long ago that had occurred), and maybe digging into Lady Ashira's past. We were going to need an open search to track down anything, including our original goal: find where Tsefan had been hidden away and repay the hunters for their deeds.

I stood up, brushing myself off and leaving the cage, the others following as Peter re-secured the lock behind us. "She'll recover from sedation in about an hour or so," I said, "so don't worry about that. Thank you Elliot," I said as I stepped out of the building, nodding to the incredibly fluffy dragon holding the door. "We should get back to the others, make sure they're still behaving, and then we can decide where to go from here. Solving this may be harder than I'd hoped.

On returning to the house (which I assumed belonged to Peter), I opened the door this time and was greeted by a bewildering sight: Snotlout was hanging by his foot from Fireworm's mouth, and Amethyst had Sasha pinned to the ground with Teshra looking on amusedly from her shoulder.

"Alright, what'd they do this time?" I growled. "Honestly, we were gone for maybe ten minutes at the most; what could you have _possibly_ managed in that time?! Wait, no, I can think of a lot…"

"Snotlout and Sasha were being asses to Jaetsu," Teshra quipped nonchalantly, to which Amethyst barked a pointed, "Tesh!"

"What? You got a better word for it?"

"…No."

I sighed and walked up to Sasha, squatting down in front of him. "You know the stakes here, so you should know to behave," I chided the tiger, and he luckily bowed his head submissively rather than bite back with some snarky comment like usual.

"Sorry," he muttered.

I nodded and stood up, gesturing for Amethyst to let him stand; Fireworm, meanwhile, just dropped Snotlout from where he hung and grinned toothily at the predicted, "Oww! Hey!" that followed. Then I turned to Jaetsu.

"My apologies for this behavior."

Jaetsu only shrugged. "Ironically, they bear me mind of my cousin; I am no stranger to such antics. No harm done."

Never a day goes by in peace, Caelia agreed, looking over his shoulder

"Well then, that hopefully to be forgotten shortly," I decided, "we've got a blank page to follow at the moment. Amethyst, we'll be looking into the trading posts later, but that will be only Ember, Snotlout, Fenrir, and I to keep suspicions down. Otherwise, we have the region to scour, try and scrape up any clues about what's going on here because the feral dragons themselves gave us none.

"A few things we absolutely need to track though: Lady Ashira is an enigma at the moment, so we need to tease out her reasons for being here and what threat she might be if things go south again. And: Mononoke made no mention of people breaking out the dragons here, so she is either lying and I did not pick up that evasion somehow, someone is going behind her notice to stir up this mess, or we have a third party somewhere to root out and I honestly wouldn't put it past the hunters to do something like that. Problem is, I don't know if they were active around here back then."

"And how are we going to figure this out?" Amethyst asked skeptically. "Like you said, no actual leads, and running around blindly doesn't really do much for my son or their problem here."

"Like any good detective does; observation, leading conversations, and cornering our suspects when they're the least prepared for it. For now, we should return to Láng Chéng; our best chance of finding answers is there, not here, but Peter, do expect us to keep close contact. We may need your help navigating the region."

"We'll offer assistance where we can," he agreed. "Clearing our name is important, if not to Mononoke then whoever might be better suited to govern her lands. If she is proven innocent of real involvement here, I might consider helping her, but she will answer for what happened to my father at some point, that I promise you.

"But," he continued with warning, "do not travel in these forests alone; though the dragons may be well, your tiger and wolf friends will be targeted by the Wyrewolves."

"Wyrewolves?" Sasha queried, eyes widening in concern slightly as his tail curled.

Peter nodded, a grave look appearing on his face. "Yes, Wyrewolves. They're a flightless pack-hunting dragon, and they specialize on hunting large mammals. They're a primitive race too, sapient but only just, and very aggressive. Wyrewolves are the only species we have never seen go feral in this region, and the only ones no one has ever bonded with here." He looked directly at me. "Do not underestimate them, and keep your friends close, I implore you. You will see them eventually, if you stay here any great length of time, and when you do you will understand why even Mononoke herself has always feared their kind."

* * *

 **A/N- For more information on the Shadehawks and Wyrewolves, make sure to check out their entries in the Book of Dragons. Also, a couple little challenges for you: what does the name of Mononoke's city mean? And, the song my character started singing; where's it come from, and who do they remind him of?**

 **So, your thoughts? Make sure to let me know in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	16. 15: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Chapter 15

One Step Forward, One Step Back

/

 _It is a game of balance_

 _Of measuring your marks_

 _Beware of every step you take_

 _Especially in the dark_

 _For every piece of progress gained_

 _There's the risk of falling flat_

 _And though you thought you planned it well_

 _Even the best plans slip through cracks_

 _Take precautions and make plan B's_

 _Have a weapon near to gasp_

 _Though you will still in time move ahead_

 _Obstacles will rise and test your clasp_

 _Flex and bend, do not be stiff_

 _Though you must at once stand firm_

 _For when your goal jumps further away_

 _Be ready to change your terms_

 _-0-_

The tunnels may have been dark, but the mood within them eclipsed the atmosphere even so; he was furious, and every soul in the vicinity knew it without doubt.

As Viggo thundered down the path, his men all scattered, disappearing behind corners and closed doors with the intent to let the head hunter (pun intended) have a clear, unobstructed shot to his destination. From experience, anyone that foolishly allowed themselves to be caught in the way was likely to either end up sorting dragon dung or be the one assigned to collecting Zippleback gas (and the dragons were always fully awake and very much alive in the process, as the Grimborns had discovered it was both the best way to source the precious fuel in good supply as well as punish subordinates). No, better to just go unnoticed and wait for the storm to pass before returning to their previous duties.

Viggo was of course too incensed at that moment to notice the blatant avoidance. All he cared about was reaching his planning room in short order. Somehow, by almost complete dumb luck, the riders had managed to show up in three of the worst locations around the world that they possibly could have. None were near the location of the Night Fury he'd captured, so at that end he was still with the winning hand against them, but a whole new host of problems had popped up in the process.

Word had come in from progressively further east that a group had headed to the Oriental region, almost right on top of the spot where he'd planted an operation intended to spread west once the Alagaesian migrants were pushed back to their homeland. Another posse had shown up in Rome, and had gotten on the good side of the emperor there, the blasted negotiators they were; worse, however, was that one of his own men in the region had let a personal grievance get in the way of set plans (said man would not be alive much longer, Viggo would see to that personally), and now that group was heading south toward the ports he needed desperately to keep clear. If the supply failed before he could figure out how to produce his new weapon from "home-grown" sources, then his grand scheme would fall through before it was even ready for the final act.

And just as bad: a third group, led by Hiccup himself, had blasted apart his intention of getting rid of the nuisances on Frey Drekki and cementing another isolated port location for his business. In the process, Ryker had dropped the worst bit of information in tandem with this setback. Riding along with Hiccup and the others, there had been a pair of talking mammals, and not in the manner of the Descendant freaks that followed Hawken around. No, these mammals were Narnians. If they found even a trace of what he was using for his central plan, they risked throwing everything out the window, Night Fury bargaining chip or not. First and foremost, he needed his brother and portsmen to get ahold of the Calormen traders again so that a fallback could be put in place.

Viggo finally reached the room and burst through the doorway, sweeping a stack of papers on the desk within violently off to the side and ignoring their fluttering to the floor. They could be picked up later, and the map underneath was of far greater concern currently. Distractions and countermeasures, he needed them now and he needed them deployed effectively. Reserves were in place already in Italy, Morocco, Norway, China, Persia…the riders needed to be away from all those locations in order for him to give the go-ahead needed once the final aspects of his coup de grace were ready, so that everywhere was hit equally and simultaneously. There would be no means for Hiccup and his friends to deal with the overwhelm all at once.

Viggo began plotting out paths, laying down pieces like a strategizing war general, before moving away from the table again and toward an odd device sitting on a shelf on the far side of the room, part of the secret to his wide reach in the world and how he'd kept tabs so easily on the whereabouts of his enemies. His father had been the one to discover that the properties of Skrill spines, when subject to electric or magnetic fields, could transmit messages in code over great distances, and Viggo had refined that knowledge. He'd been permitted an even greater step forward in that field though when that man John Malin had appeared.

The Riders didn't know this, but Viggo had made swift contact when his men reported a figure with vast resources and a vengeance to play out, and was rewarded for his efforts in trade of information and some sparse goods in the form of technology that had rivaled the objects Jezebel had once proffered to enemies of dragons. Among them, solar cells to charge electronics and long-distance radio communications systems; coded messages through "spine-tapping" were now obsolete for Viggo, and the ability to directly send or receive a call over thousands of miles in a moment had stepped up productions and coordination for all his endeavors ten-fold in only a couple of years.

Now, Viggo switched the radio transceiver on, dialing in a channel he hadn't needed to use in months. Static crackled through as he waited for the signal to be noticed on the other end, and luckily for the other party it wasn't long before a heavily accented voice came through.

"Port Haljabad, El-Ari speaking."

"El-Ari, so good to hear from you old friend," Viggo said with faux pleasantry. A startled choke answered, before El-Ari coughed and replied back shakily.

"V-Viggo? It has been months; for what is the need of the direct call from you in person so suddenly?"

"Proceedings have hit a possible, and if actions are wrong on my men's part fatal, snag," the hunter answered, "and loose ends need to be tied up at soonest notice. Have the Calormen ships been keeping up with the trade agreement?"

"Y-yes sir. The next ship arrives this evening if on schedule."

"Good. Then pass on a message to the captain to send one of their messenger birds back. I know Caspian keeps an antidote in mass storage now that they're aware of the plant and the risks of others having it, and their supply must be destroyed immediately."

"…Sir?"

"Ryker encountered a pair of Narnians with a group of the Riders, which means there is now someone in our part of the world who might eventually recognize the symptoms, or the plant itself if they were to ever find our stores, gods-forbid. If that happens, they could go back and bring the neutralizing serum here, risking all of our plans even despite the Night Fury youngling. Therefore, the supply needs to be destroyed."

"I..yes sir, but that won't be an easy thing to convince them of," El-Ari replied timidly. "Th-the Narnians have won every conflict they have ever entered in with the Calormenes in recent years, and they guard their lands fiercely."

"Compliance on their part with this will be rewarded with two jars of Tide Glider saliva and a crate of Nightmare gel," Viggo said flatly. He knew the value of what he'd offered so flippantly, and knew it would win the argument. "Or, conversely, non-compliance will result in feral Speed Stingers planted on their boats."

Silence passed for a moment, before El-Ari quietly acquiesced. "Yes sir, I will pass on the order."

"Good. Report to me when it's been done."

Immediately Viggo switched off the channel, paused a moment to breathe, before he dialed in another. The same short wait passed before a deeper voice grumbled in, "Do you have a retribution for me to exact?"

"Indeed, Darian," Viggo replied. "We've had a bit of meddling that's set us back on the western front. Send me a Night Fury's scale, if you will, removed without sedatives. I have several more calls that I must make, so I will leave it to your imagination how to do so."

"My pleasure," Darian replied in a sickly sweet voice, before clicking out.

* * *

Several thousand miles away, Tsefan strained against the chains that held him captive in the little box he'd been left in for days. He winced as the hard metal edges bit into his skin.

Despite knowing that even if he got out there was the bigger steel box, the subterranean room beyond, and several hundred yards of twisting paths and dead ends to navigate before even reaching any exit, that didn't stop the young Night Fury from trying to break out. Shy and secluded he usually was, but he had still inherited the same stubborn drive that both of his parents had in his own way, and he was still a dragon. He would fight to his last breath.

::I hope they're getting close to finding me,:: he muttered when he paused to catch his breath, and noting the plate of who-knew-what that they gave him every day nearby, a grayish-white mass of something only barely recognizable as organic. ::I can't believe they pass that slop off as edible here. Probably as palatable as Scauldron dung, eugh!:: Shuddering, he dug his claws in and strained again, hoping to pop a screw joint loose somewhere and break his chains.

A door slammed open somewhere nearby, and the flicker of firelight brightened the space alongside the tiny sliver from a crack in the ceiling high above. Tsefan paused, his stomach churning at the thought of it being meal time again; he was starved, but another few rounds of what they'd offered and he was sure he'd be poisoned.

However, the flickering torch was set in a holder on the far wall rather than simply approaching him for a plate to be thrown in his cell in the usual dump-and-split tactic of the guard (leaving the dragon to struggle with eating through his muzzle, a near impossible task). Slow, methodical steps approached him, turning Tsefan's gaze to the barred side of his box. A new chill ran down his spine at the sight of who greeted him, and a snarl escaped his throat involuntarily before he could stop himself.

"Growl at me and it just makes this predicament worse for you," Darian snapped, opening the bigger box before kneeling down and bringing his hands into view. In one, he gripped a small, sharp knife, and the other, a three-pronged instrument with the middle point shorter than the others and lined in barbs. "And it'll be more satisfying to me."

The way Tsefan cringed at the sight of the instruments brought the hunter a twisted satisfaction already, and Darian grinned. "I see you're catching on," he cooed, oozing false kindness in his voice. "You see, your _family_ decided to disregard Viggo's warning. Sure, we can't really fault them necessarily for looking, because of course they would, but for freeing our captures for others or interrogating our crew…well, Viggo wants some proof that he'll do what he threatened. So let's get to it shall we?"

Darian stepped forward, and Tsefan involuntarily pulled away before he remembered the futility of that. Steeling himself and standing his ground instead, though trembling, he glared at the man. "If irt kills merr, I hope they firnd whert yer've done," he hissed through the muzzle.

Darian shrugged. "If they ever find this place before we get the chance to move you, we probably will kill you, so I'd be careful what you ask for. But for now, I have to keep you alive, and hurting." He unlocked the bars of the cage and swiftly lashed forward with the trident, barely giving Tsefan a moment to react before it had already pinned him down behind his head, forcing him to the ground to avoid impaling himself or ripping his neck open on the barbs of the central prong. Darian took another step forward, stomping down on Tsefan's tail to prevent him from moving at all and drawing a yelp from the young dragon.

"The more you struggle, the more this will hurt by the way," the hunter toned, "so I hope you put up a fight. Viggo wants a scale, and he never told me how to get it or where he wanted it cut from." Pausing to let this sink in, he reached forward with his other hand, the one holding the knife, and leaned down to let the blade slide along the dragon's back.

Tsefan stilled, knowing he couldn't escape, and braced himself. Darian drew the knife down along his side, before stopping right below the Night Fury's ribs and digging the tip under a solitary scale, cutting the skin and then ripping it upward.

The scream that blasted from the young dragon made the hunter's ears ring, but he relished every bit of it.

* * *

::Oh, for the love of…can we just drag him behind the ship, please? Maybe we'll get lucky and a shark will investigate.::

Twintail gave off a self-sympathetic chuckle at Melania's discomfort. She was only just getting introduced to this, while he'd lived with it for approaching three years now; he could only imagine how the Berkians had withstood it for 24 years.

::Now you know what we get to deal with on a daily basis,:: he mused. ::Be glad he's stuck on a ship with limited resources to ramble over; were we still in the city it would be terrifying what would come out of his mouth.::

The Desert Wraith shuddered, before her eyes widened in concern. ::Wait…does this mean he'll get worse when we reach port?::

::Possible.::

::No!::

The Zippleback now let out a full on laugh before his doubled expressions settled and both heads turned to regard the source of Melania's anxiety.

"While I know Cami might support you in your harebrained ideas, or at least some of them, may I remind you that we are guests here on Ingavar's ship and he would not appreciate your rummaging through his cargo in your attempts to make water-reactive Molotovs?"

"Aw, come on, I'm just gonna make one," Tuffnut complained, looking up at the dragon with a completely unrepentant pouty face. "It'd be so cool, throw it off the bow and watch it go boom when it hits the water! Just one big jug, please?"

"And waste precious materials that Ingavar needs for trade or his defenses?" Twintail growled back. "I'll say it again, just as I did when we first came down here and found you: no."

The blond Viking crossed his arms and glared, before his trademark grin reappeared. "Well, if nobody sees me then nobody will know it's missing, right? I'll just be over here…" He tilted backward and spun on one foot to walk around behind a stack of mead crates where the dragons couldn't see him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't _think_ so!" Twintail snapped, his right head reaching forward around the crates and grabbing Tuff by the back of his suit (and tried desperately to avoid gagging as he realized in the same motion that the Viking had probably avoided bathing for a couple of weeks, on top of…well, there was no mistaking the smell of Camicazi on him. Recently too; how did she stand him?!), lifting him up off the ground. "I think we're going to head back up top now," his left head continued, glaring at Tuff before turning around to head out of the hold "We're not getting on our ride's bad side here."

They made their way up the stairs to the top deck, and Twintail made a beeline for where Camicazi was watching the waves roll by from the prow alongside Stormfly. "Reminds me of our time on Dawn Treader near Narnia," she sighed, before turning to see the Zippleback unceremoniously dump her husband in front of her and then flame his own mouth to get rid of the taste. "Including occasional angry dragons dragging my now husband up from the depths of the ship for some reason or other. Alright, what were you getting into this time?" she interrogated, reaching down to hoist Tuff to his feet. "This mean I have to ban you from the cargo hold and bother Kingsley or the raptors to help me watch you? Honestly Tuff, I thought I trained you better than this."

"He was snooping around looking for materials to build explosives," Twintail explained, leveling a pair of glares at Cami. "And don't you dare encourage him on this!"

Cami crossed her arms and looked at Tuff. "Well, can't say I disagree with making things go boom," she reasoned.

"Yes! See, bombs are always good!" Tuff crowed, before yelping as Cami reached over and grabbed his ear.

"But," she amended, "never on a ship, certainly not on Ingavar's ship! Knowing you it would go off in the hold, and then we would have to rescue everyone ourselves and owe Ingavar not only a brand new vessel but all his cargo's worth too, so please, for me, _behave._ We're almost to port anyway."

Apparently sufficiently cowed, Tuff let out a meek, "Yes, ma'am," before being released by his wife to scuttle away again.

"And remind me, you married him why, again?" Stormfly queried, scales shifting to a peach color as Cami chuckled and gave her dragon a shrug.

"Oh, reasons. Besides, it's an easy way to get a servant who'll wait on you hand and foot just so he can get paid one easy thing."

"Oh I see, nearly free labor. What you paying…wait, don't answer that, I already know. Eugh."

Camicazi laughed hard, before turning to look back out to sea again.

The several-day trip had seen them leave the Mediterranean, and they were approaching an Atlantic port in Morocco where Ingavar had trusted contacts with resources they could use. The reputation of the seafaring Viking gave him a lot of reach, to the point where even the Moors wouldn't refuse him, and he was certain that if anyone knew about what the Coalition might be up to in these parts, it would be the traders of the North African coast.

They were all tense, with Talon having spotted land ahead barely a half hour before, and were eager to know if this would be a lead or just a dead end to move on from. Certainly, if Grimwald had been to believe (though Eret pointedly voiced his doubts multiple times on this), they might at least find some answers for the raids that had hit Rome and Andalusia even if they would have to travel back on their steps for Tsefan. If they were directly related somehow, as unlikely as most of them thought that to be, and the raids were meant to throw them all off track, then perhaps all the better.

"We'll be in port in just a few minutes," Eret suddenly spoke up nearby, drawing startled looks and jumps from the three dragons and one Viking at the prow and providing him amusement. "Wow, if I didn't know better I'd say you were all as wound up as springs in a spear launcher."

::After dealing with listening to Tuffnut for an hour, how couldn't you be?:: Melania muttered, making the other dragons snicker.

"There's a lot riding on this, so it's not exactly a surprise I hope," Twintail answered Eret. "I'm just hoping Ingavar is right about his contacts; no doubt word will reach Viggo soon enough that one of his own men tipped us off about their involvement in the raids, and the hunters might become harder to track for it."

"Well, if we can't sniff down a clue somewhere to follow I will be both appalled by my own tracking skills and our prowess as a team," Eret said jokingly. "Former trapper, three raptors, a snake, and a teleporter; we can't find something then there's probably nothing to be found."

"All hands on deck!" Ingavar's bellowing voice suddenly boomed over the ship. "Prepare to dock! Batten the sails, secure the riggings! Bitwolf, get the mooring lines ready, we'll need them to be at hand te take the next open docking space!"

"Well, I guess that's our cue to get things together," Cami said, turning abruptly away from the edge of the ship with Stormfly in tow.

The next several minutes were spent in a frenzy of activity as the ship was prepared, carefully maneuvering it through the marina of the trade port before coming to rest alongside an empty dock, tied up securely and a gangplank laid out to disembark. Ingavar halted on the plank however, turning to address his guests.

"Stay close and preferably quiet," he said softly, "at least while we're in the open public here. Though I have friends in the area, this place is rightly wary of new faces and strange dragons."

"Well, other than that we can speak, how are we that strange?" Stormfly questioned.

Ingavar chuckled despite himself. "Ye won't find Mood Dragons or Zipplebacks 'round these parts," he explained, before gesturing to Melania beside him. "We are at the desert's edge, in the land of Wraiths, Triple Strykes, and Viperwyrms. To which I also stress, watch where ye put yer feet. If it moves here, it likely bites or stings, and can be fatal."

"So in other words, if it looks like me, keep away," Kingsley drawled, to which Shadow and Feren suppressed snorts of laughter. "Sounds like Hawken's kind of place, though a bit on the dry side."

"Aye, probably is," Ingavar agreed, turning down the plank. "Come on."

Stares and glares appeared and multiplied rapidly as they left the docks and headed into the trading town itself. A hundred skin tones and outfits to match walked the streets, with clear signs as to who was resident, and who were the sailors and travelers. None were quite as out of place however as the posse filled with large reptiles and oddly dressed people, or the multi-colored cat that brought up the rear of the group. They paid the looks little mind however, and continued to follow Ingavar through the moderately crowded streets.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky either, and in the late spring sun the ground below everyone's feet was beginning to bake, waves of heat rising up around them in shimmering ripples visible at any distance beyond ten feet. Heat was not an entirely foreign notion to most of them, but the more northerly adapted of the group, despite their Myscale coverings, were feeling it after only a couple of minutes among the stone buildings and canvas tents all around them.

"Good Lord, the Congo was hot but this is something else!" Cami quipped, pulling out her water bottle and taking a swig before wiping her forehead. "And people like to live here? It isn't even the height of summer yet!"

"Maybe not like, so much as tolerate," Attonius sighed, fanning himself with his hand as well. "I envy the dragons in this case, or even Feren; at least they're more adapted to handle the heat."

"Right, 'handle;' doesn't mean we enjoy it either," Feren grumbled, his ears flicking in a minute attempt to fan themselves. "There's a difference between taking a blast of fire and standing in the middle of a convection oven."

"Then mark it both lucky and prudent that we must retire to the indoors once more," Ingavar offered, slowing to a stop in front of the broad doors of a large, almost adobe-style building. "If someone knows what is occurring in these parts, we'll probably find them in here." He pushed the doors open, and disappeared inside with Melania right beside him, as the others gawked at the spread that appeared before their eyes.

Trading ports and vast stall lines of goods were rather familiar to Berk and its allies, and even Attonius and Eret were accustomed to the open street layouts of Rome and Naples and the like, but the indoor bazaar before them was a different flavor from all those. Illuminated by spotted windows and skylights, rows and rows of booths and stalls were lined up within, hawking everything from wood-carved trinkets, to maps, grand African-pattern carpets, and even livestock and exotic skins. A dozen languages were being shouted among the merchants and craftsmen behind their tables and beside their racks of wares, buyers haggling with the sellers for the best prices or the best profit.

After a moment of all of them simply standing and staring, Melania turned back to see the group not moving and paused, barking to Ingavar to get his attention. The Viking captain turned and laughed at the sight before yelling, "We won't have all day, my friends! Keep a move on!"

"Looks, uh, like smaller might be better around here," Feren mused, halving his size as his half-siblings did the same, and yet only drawing a couple of startled looks from the crowd around them with the act; most were too busy bartering. "Sorry Spitfire, Stormfly; you want to wait outside with Tuff just in case of a need for backup perhaps? Twintail, do you mind too?"

"Not a bad idea," Stormfly agreed, sharing a nod with Cami. "We'll stand watch."

"Aw, come on, I can't go with you guys?" Tuff complained, though his eyes were still jumping from stall to stall with a dangerous gleam.

"You're a hazard on a ship; you don't need to be wandering through a full-on market," Cami admonished.

Tuff crossed his arms. "Fine, fine, I'll stay here for you, _honey_. Though, that fried thing on a stick over there looks really good…and maybe I could pick up a new tunic over there. Fuzzy fluffy thing…"

"Don't even think it," Cami snapped, sharing a look with the three dragons. "You suck at bartering anyway. Pin him if you have to, hear me?" Then she turned to join the others again, who were already making their way through the bazaar.

At every turn, vendors called out with prices and offerings, insistences on "You need this to accentuate your beauty!" or "Must eat for good health!" and so on, often in tongues none of the group understood (save perhaps Ingavar himself). Most yelled out in the common tongue, but there certainly wasn't any shortage of lingual variety. Luckily, everyone managed to make it through the maze in mostly one piece behind Ingavar's imposing form (though at one point Feren barely bit back a snarl at an offering of gold to buy his pelt), and the Viking chief turned to approach a table along near the far wall covered in various gems and metal jewelry goods. Immediately the female of the group lit up, eyes wandering over the sparkling necklaces, bracelets, and beaded earrings on display with much the same gleam as Tuffnut had displayed earlier, her imagination cooking up a hundred ways she could flaunt such wares in front of Astrid or Ruffnut when they got back.

"My, I'd bet Holly would squeal over these too; maybe I should pick one up while I'm here," Cami said jovially, reaching toward a ruby bracelet to inspect it closer. No sooner had her hand touched it however than a large, equally ornate dagger plunged into the table only a hair's breadth from the side of her fingers.

"No handling the merchandise without express permission, girlie," the weapon's wielder snarled warningly. "I'm not tolerating risk of thieves, and you aren't looking very honorable right now."

Cami, for her part, withheld the temptation to grab one of her many own hidden blades and chop the offending one down to size, but only just. "Oh, my bad, didn't see a sign," she sneered. "People aren't usually such sticklers where I'm from; maybe because we lose heads if we try making off with something, not hands. And who the hell you think you are calling me 'girlie'? I'm almost twenty-four myself!"

"Yer a girl until you're servin' in a husband's house," the dark-skinned merchant snipped back, removing his dagger and flipping it around in warning.

Cami didn't take heed of the note, incensed as she now was by the man's attitude and drawing her own blade. "Why you son of a-!"

"Unwise to earn her ire, Amuun," Ingavar barked, freezing the both of them in place with his volume. "Camicazi's husband stands just outside the market on guard, and she is both a Chieftess' daughter and one of the best warriors to walk this earth. You'll sooner lose your own head than win an argument with her. Physically, or verbally."

Amuun's eyes widened, glancing back at the young woman and noting the shimmer of the blade that slowly slid back into its hidden sheath, before composing himself and hiding away his own dagger. "My, uh, my apologies then, miss; we do not get many female fighters in these lands," he replied, before halting, turning back to Ingavar and his eyes widening in recognition in time with his broad smile. "Ingavar?"

"Aye!" Ingavar laughed. "It's been some time!"

"Aha! Indeed, a couple of years at least," the merchant exclaimed, reaching over and giving the taller man a strong hug. 'What brings you back down this way, and with such a…" his eyes roamed over the group behind the Viking, resting particularly on the king cobra wrapped around Loki's shoulders and the saber-toothed cat beside, "… _colorful_ band with you? You have a Wraith following you now even; never thought I'd see the day you let a dragon stand!"

"Yes, much has transpired," Ingavar agreed, rubbing Melania's head. "Rescued Melania here about a year ago from fights, among other atrocities, and these are inhabitants of the Barbaric Archipelago and their allies, friends of mine. Everyone, this is Amuun Danyaheh, renowned gems-dealer, though admittedly a little rough around the edges." He flashed a grin at the man, earning a dismissive snort in reply. "We're here trackin' a missing dragon and attempting te find answers about some attacks that we stumbled over mention of on cities to the north, and they lead back to the Hunter's Coalition."

Amuun's eyes darkened for a moment, and he looked around them warily as a recognition of another kind flashed across his face. "We should continue this in private then," he said softly, before barking over his shoulder. "Nilab! Man the tables; I have some personal business to attend to!"

Another man of clearly African descent, dressed out in ornate clothing and sporting a dagger to Match Amuun's on his belt, nodded and stepped up to the tables of wares. Amuun gestured for the others to follow him back, entering a sort of tent behind the table that was set up against the market wall itself. Those who could fit crowded in behind him; Feren and Melania stood just outside.

Amuun gave a loud sigh as he collapsed into a cushioned chair. "You all have set yourselves in very dangerous waters," he said. "Lucky you are that I would never betray friends of Ingavar, nor do I bother in bounties or live trades."

"Well, those aren't the most comforting of words to hear, even in that context," Attonius said nervously. "What, exactly, drives you to say this?"

"I don't know what it is that you're tracking, but it must be a very serious matter to the trappers," Amuun replied. "Barely a day ago, the elite among the merchants received word of a bounty set out by the Coalition; a thousand silver standards for any of the Dragon riders, dead or alive, or their friends. The Grimborns have put a hefty price on your heads, and anyone who hears that message and is less than savory may try to take it." He shook his head. "I understand why you brought them here, Ingavar; this is the most major port between the lower tropics and Europe, but this is the land of not only the trading Moors but the Bedouin migrants, the headhunters, and the slave traders, among others. You might find answers around here, but you'll have a target painted on your back for as long as you set foot anywhere within a thousand miles of here. Men will not hesitate to try and put arrows in that target either."

"Then we can't encourage you to travel with us any longer, Ingavar," Loki interjected, turning to the chief. "The rest of us are empowered or protected in some manner, but you don't have our special armors or weapons. You would be the most as risk, especially as you now have a dragon of your own. We can make our own way from here."

"Nonsense," Ingavar snorted. "Bounty there may be, but I have allies to lend protection and my assistance to, and I am not so easily brought down. I will aid my friends, and I consider you all as such."

"With all due respect Ingavar," Delta spoke up, ignoring the usual surprised sucking in of air from Amuun at her speech, "you have helped us already. If this is a place answers of any kind can be rooted out from, we can find it easier than even any man with threads to pull on. No one notices a snake in the cracks, or shadows along a wall, but they do an inquisitive tongue."

"My asking questions is nothing new, and I can reach through others so that I do not raise suspicions myself," Ingavar countered. "I know who te go to as well. I have decades of trade among the nations, and I know who te read, who to avoid. If you are te find anything you will need someone to mediate eventually. And, I will not stand by if Melania or my other crew are at risk from the hunters' treachery."

Silence, for several moments, took over as Ingavar stared resolutely down the others. Finally, it was Kingsley who broke the stalemate with a sigh as he dropped from Loki's shoulders and rose up in the middle of the group. "You're not going to back down on this, are you?" he asked rhetorically, receiving a shake of Ingavar's head in response anyway. "Then what's our point in arguing? You know the risk exists that you could be killed alongside us, but you're accepting it to help, and we're wasting time over this. Amuun, thank you for the warning you have provided, but knowing we may be targeted doesn't help us figure out where to start just yet, and it's not that shocking a revelation unfortunately. What do you know of the hunters' practices at the moment, their endeavors?"

Amuun took a moment to compose himself (he did not wake up that morning expecting to converse with a cobra after all), before snorting. "They always have several end games at play, some more hidden than others. What, more specifically?"

"How about hiding away a rare dragon as a bargaining piece, or something that could cause dragons to attack cities?"

"They've gone from selling dragons to directing them now?"

"Not quite," Attonius amended. "We were in Rome a short time after a flock of dragons apparently went feral and raided the region; they attacked even other dragons that were defending a sanctuary run by friends of mine. A crew of hunters was at the city in the docks and one of them let slip that the Coalition had something to do with it."

Amuun shook his head and shrugged helplessly. "Afraid I haven't heard of such, on either of those fronts, though animosity toward dragons is never not a factor around here either; that you weren't physically threatened just for walking in here is probably thanks to the bristling weapons several of you have. But the activity of the Coalition has increased around here the past few months. If you want to find their operations, I suggest heading further south. I can tell you what to look for, but only if you can swear that this information will not be tracked back to me."

"Don't worry, the one possible blab is outside the market still," Cami muttered.

Amuun raised an eyebrow, before crossing his arms. "I need a bit more than that."

"You have the oath of the Family Asgard, and the assurance of the Riders of Berk and their allies, that any leads we find will not lead back to your practice from us," Loki said, spreading his hands in an offering gesture.

Amuun look at him stoically for a moment, before taking in a deep breath. "Very well. When they're not selling their wares in port here, the Coalition conducts trades in a smaller outpost to the south," he explained. "It would be a several-day walk from here, and the area is riddled with a hundred dangers both natural and manmade to discourage prying eyes. If you want to find something that's more frowned upon by the rest of the world, that's where it's traded. Middle of the desert by an oasis, any and all tents set up for stalls colored to match the land to blend in and it can be shut down in hours if they think something's up, and all participants there will undoubtedly be armed to the teeth and would love to turn you all in for the bounty to be reaped. I don't know how you could manage to sneak into the place, as the hills around it always have lookouts posted, and there is no place to hide in the Sahara, but if they have a dragon you want it may be there, or answers to your, uh, _feral problem._ "

"And that's what we needed to know; your help is very much appreciated Amuun," Ingavar said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. "Before we leave this port I will be sure to have someone from my crew bring you a flagon of Peaceable Raspberry Mead for your time; I'm sure you remember its worth?"

Clearly he did, as Amuun's eyes brightened considerably. "Oh, I have not had the pleasure for years! Nilab will most certainly be ecstatic as well; consider it a more than fair trade."

"And while we're here, how much for that ruby bracelet that was laying out there?" Cami inquired, jerking her thumb out the tent flap toward the tables, to the raised eyebrows of several of her companions. "What? I've gotta get a souvenir while we're here."

Amuun chuckled. "After my reaction earlier, you still want it?"

"Hey, I might be a fighter, and I'll gut anyone that talks down at me, but I can still be a lady too sometimes."

"For you then, three gold standards."

Cami nodded, deciding it was fair enough not to haggle over for once, and with a flourish held her palm out, three coins resting on it as if they'd simply appeared there.

"Uh, and where the heck were you hiding those?" Shadow asked her incredulously as Amuun took the payment, looking her up and down with a perplexed expression.

Cami laughed and replied, "Now Shadow, telling might leave me open to pickpockets; better that no one loses their hands today I think. Now come on, I've got a bracelet to grab and a husband to fetch!"

She sauntered out of the tent, drawing everyone behind her as Ingavar left off with a handshake with Amuun, and after letting Nilab know she'd paid for it slipped the bracelet around her wrist and turned to push her way back through the bustling market once more. This time though, everyone was a touch more attentive to the attention they were drawing, still ignoring the shouts of merchants and traders that they passed but noticing the silent glances that were sent their way, most of them still just perplexed looks. But, a handful of eyes were almost hungry, seeing value over people in the party that passed by. Wisely however, none attempted to start a scene.

None, that is, until they reached the entrance to the bazaar and returned to the blazing streets outside. Tuffnut was nowhere to be seen at first, and neither were any of the larger dragons, but seconds later a roar and a sweep of fire appeared several streets over alongside the sound of one yelling twin.

"AAAAHHHHH! I'm sorry! I just wanted one of the shiny rocks!"

Camicazi moved first, a blonde blur down the dirt road, and Kingsley was close at her heels before the rest followed. They skidded around the corner to find Stormfly coiled menacingly against the side of a building as a guard around Tuffnut, her scales flashing blood red, and Twintail was advancing on a group of robed men that were armed with ropes and swords, streamers of fire swirling around his necks and tails. Spitfire was camouflaging near Stormfly, but as he'd already been spotted and dashed with the red dust of the ground it wasn't doing him any good.

Apparently not noticing the new arrivals, the men lashed out with their ropes, trying to lasso Twintail and restrain him so that they could reach Stormfly and Tuffnut. They clearly had expected dragons, as the bindings were resisting the flames the Zippleback was wielding, but they weren't quite ready for a dragon that could change his size at will, or one that spit acid as was apparent when Spitfire decloaked himself and burned away their lashings as he snapped at them.

Camicazi let out a bloodcurdling yell and dashed forward, turning her barrier on just before leaping past Twintail, sweeping her blades out and laying waste to the ropes, as well as meeting the blades of the attackers and throwing them back before cutting their own swords in half. After the first two men fell unconscious to the dirt from her punches and the rest were effectively rendered defenseless, their attackers realized that an attempted capture in broad daylight was no longer a wise decision, and turned to run.

They halted when Loki appeared out of thin air in front of them, a Mysteel longsword sliding smoothly from the scabbard at his side. A second later, those that tried to speed around him or down nearby alleys flinched and stumbled back into a pile as one warrior multiplied into four, blocking their escape.

"We've been here for all of a half hour, maximum, and the first bounty hunters have already appeared," Feren growled as he grew to full size and sauntered up to the would-be captors. "Unbelievable." He padded up to the nearest man, who was now quaking in his robes, and bared his teeth. "Consider this your warning shot."

The cat's paw moved faster than anyone save Cami could react to, and a second later the man fell to the ground, four shallow gashes running across the side of his face. When Feren stepped a touch closer he scrambled back only to run into his other accomplices.

"We'll let you go with little else if you swear to spread our own word," he spat. "We are not to be bothered again, or a scratch will be the least of anyone's worries. Is this understood?"

When they did not immediately respond with affirmation, the Macawnivore looked up at Loki and his doppelgangers. Four levitating daggers hovering over their heads later, the would-be bounty hunters let out a chorus of matching "Understood! Understood!"

"Good," Feren purred in faux-sweetness, before his expression hardened again. "Now scram! And don't come back, or I'll throw you from here to the sea!"

The doppelgangers vanished and the daggers returned to Loki, and the men scrambled away in haste. The others looked on with disapproving scowls.

"And cue previews for probably any and all other interactions we're bound to have in the next few days," Cami deadpanned. "Alright, Tuff, my first question is: how'd you manage to even let yourself and the dragons end up in that situation? You were supposed to be on guard, not pinned to a wall!"

"It's not my fault!" Tuff protested, finally having been released from the protective cover of the Mood Dragon over him. "This guy had these shiny rocks up on his stand, and I thought it'd be something nice to pick up for Ruff, something she'd appreciate after I hit her with it, and these guys ambushed me!"

"So you didn't stay with the dragons?"

"Yes I...uh, wait…what was the question again?"

An exasperated groan escaped his wife's mouth, and she reached over and snagged him by the ear. "Alright, let's go."

"Ow, ow ow owowowowowowow! I am hurt! I am very much hurt!"

"You'll be hurt more if you don't move, and you know it!"

Looking over as she dragged Tuffnut by, Cami added, "Ingavar, if you happen to have any advice on what to pack for a desert trip, it's probably best we do so ASAP. If this is going to take a few days, we might want a few to get ready too."

"Well, first thing you'll want is water, and a lot of it," Ingavar replied, quirking an eyebrow in amusement at her manhandling of Tuffnut but not commenting on it. "Especially for the dragons. There's nae tellin' if there'll be any stores along the path, and the last thing ye want to do is develop heatstroke in the Sahara."

"Anything else?"

"Well I assume you've got defense covered; food is of course another big concern but we can ready some trades for that here over the next day or so. For now though, I think getting' back to the ship is our best course o' action. We can lay out our preparations there."

Cami nodded, and gestured with her free hand forward. "Well, lead the way then! I'll stay back here in case anyone else wants to take a shot at us."

As they turned back down the streets toward the docks, none of them noticed the man in Arab robes leaning in a deceptively casual manner against a nearby storehouse. His eyes followed them under his short hood, and as they vanished he stepped back into the nearby alley, pulling out a strange device from the pocket hidden in his clothing. It was a complex of wires and buttons, held together by several eerily familiar metallic spikes that connected the components. The man turned a dial on the side, before punching out a coded message; the higher-ups may not have used the Skrill messengers anymore, but the rest of the Coalition still did.

 _Riders heading into the desert,_ he tapped out. _Relocate the stock immediately. And send out an envoy; rile up the natives to slow them down._

The message sent, to be transceived on the other end, the man tucked the device away again and pushed away from the alley, trotting deeper into town.

"They're northerners," he muttered. "The desert will be hard enough on them; surely adding a handful of angry nomads will at least keep them busy for time enough."

* * *

 **A/N- And we're back, with a touch of treachery, torture, and...Tuff.**

 **What do you think? Sorry to say, Tsefan's ordeal is far from over, and the rest of the gang still has a lot of digging up secrets to do. A few good hints about what Viggo's grand plan is though; I would hope most of the readers had figured that out by now even if the Riders are still grasping straws, but if not, keep on reading; there'll be more.**

 **Let me know your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews, and also, keep an eye out on the Book of Dragons once more. In the next few weeks, once I complete my sketches, there will be a couple of new dragons to be added to the list.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	17. Chapter 16: Tedious Affairs

Chapter 16

Tedious Affairs

/

 _It's not all fireworks and flowers_

 _For even the most harrowing tales_

 _Police have paperwork_

 _Detectives their digging_

 _And heroes, their moments off and lost_

 _To fix the problems ahead_

 _You often have to halt_

 _Take stock and care of where you are_

 _What you have_

 _And those in on the race beside you_

 _We rarely find what we need right away_

 _Rather, it's a task for a simple clue_

 _Sometimes however it's the task itself_

 _That gives the provision needed all along_

 _-0-_

Though silent halls usually gave her some comfort, as if they held the memories of a quiet den long ago, the soft padding of her paws against the polished floors echoing ever so faintly off the grand mahogany walls of the palace did nothing more now than further unsettle Mononoke's thoughts. Changes that brought such uncertainty to the life of her region were never really welcomed, and though she'd acquiesced to the new group of riders investigating as they wished in the area (in no small part because she wasn't sure yet what the young man in the black coat was truly capable of, and as a nod to her fellow wolf; she found him rather handsome, in fact, though she'd never say it aloud), they were certainly not yet trusted by her. As yet they hadn't done anything truly suspicious or unsettling for the past couple of days, save for visiting the accursed Alagaesians though that was inevitable. No doubt they had told her new guests that she was responsible for the attacks, or at least the release of the contained dragons.

Blasted lies, all of it.

The wolf looked around at her home, silently pondering the state of things, before heaving a great sigh and turning into a nearby room, sinking down into a pillow dejectedly. She thought herself to be a fair monarch, if strict in some manners. Her people and fellow animals were provided for as she kept the region fertile, trade kept up with mining, and the land was protected in turn by the animals, her soldiers, and the skills and weapons brought in by her allies. In return, Mononoke had asked for little: a home to comfortably live in, respect for her fellow wolves from the humans among them, obedience in trying times, and more recently, a ban from interacting with any of the dragons outside battle or the exceptions she and her generals deemed right, for fear that more would turn savage among them.

It was a good balance. Why then, she wondered, did she suffer the headaches of their attacks and such mistrust from her neighbors? Were the sins of her past, long since dead, so great that the gods could give her no true time of rest in her reign?

The sound of footsteps approaching steadily outside in the hall brought Mononoke's ears up, and her head turned toward the doorway as a figure in a flowing silk dress appeared, though notably bereft of the usual weapon on her back. She halted at the unreadable expression on the wolf's muzzle, unsure if she was welcome to enter or not.

"Lady Ashira," Mononoke said neutrally, acknowledging her presence.

"Forgive me, your Majesty," Ashira deferred, bowing slightly. "If it is not a wise time I may return later."

"No, no, it's fine," Mononoke placated. "Much has occurred in the past few days and it has drained me is all."

"Ah yes, the foreign riders."

The derision was impossible to miss in the woman's voice, but for now Mononoke did not turn a hard eye to it like she usually would where voiced displeasure with her decisions was concerned. Ashira looked at her pointedly however and continued. "Can you honestly say that you have even a rice grain's worth of confidence in their solving this feral plague?"

The wolf did not answer immediately, instead standing up and walking over in measured steps to the cold fireplace nearby. Dragging her claw across the front of it along a dark, ragged line etched in the stone, sparks leapt out and set the oil on the logs ablaze, illuminating a grand painted frame above the mantle. Across it, Lung dragons flew above people and animals below, none ailing with animosity and instead only portraying a grand mural of a peaceful life long since lost.

"I have been around long enough to remember with clarity the days where dragons were not enemies on these shores, Ashira," Mononoke spoke as she gazed at the painting. "At least, no more than any other great predator to another. Sowing and reaping of food, the capture of game was easier with them around, and when the kingdoms to the south turned violent we had the greatest protection among us against them. As well, the Alagaesian domain has been at peace and in place for more than a millennium, hence why some of their settlers traveled out to the coast here to live as their population has grown so. Peaceful interaction with the dragons should be possible. I only hold my ban because of the risk that has come around this region here and now, my distrust in the Alagaesian village because they broke what I'd given them, and I would ever rather that it be fixed for bloodshed benefits none."

The wolf turned to Ashira, an expression half longing and half imploring worn, before her gaze flickered to the fire. "That man Hawken and his companions are capable of things I have only heard distant stories of even with what I can do, so though I am not confident, I cannot say that I have no hopes, or that they are fundamentally misplaced."

"I will continue to hold my reservations."

"And I am well aware that confidence is hampered by your country's centuries of experiences as well. The Wyrewolves here were never particularly peaceful so there have always been species exceptions; your dragons could be similar. But it drove your people to develop weapons that now protect the villages in my domain, so I will not call it entirely tragic either. We have divergent pasts Ashira, but a strong alliance now. If my affliction here is calmed, perhaps I can return favor to you beyond just our trade as you did me."

Mononoke turned to address Ashira directly now, command in her eyes. "For now however, while the foreigners are here, I will not wish harmful fortune on them, and I will do as I promised. You and yours shall do the same. If they cannot help in the end, perhaps if they find answers for the dragon they seek they will simply leave us to deal with our own problems as it was before and we will be no worse off."

"Right, the Night Fury youngling," Ashira mused, twisting her fingers in the edges of her dress. "Has the envoy you sent to the southern port returned yet?"

"No, not yet," Mononoke admitted wearily, "but I would not expect them to. It is a fair travel down and back by foot, and they will purchase provisions as needed while there so I suspect another day or two for both that and the effort to bring them here. If the dragon hunters they seek are present, someone among the stalls will know."

"And what if they find nothing, and do _not_ leave us be afterward?" Ashira pressed. "Perhaps I am just pessimistic, but you and I have both dealt with those who will not be content to leave well enough alone."

The wolf snorted. "If it is so, then I will bring all that I can wield against them," she answered simply. "They may have dragons, but we have driven an entire village of dragons out from our borders. They may have gifts, but I have power too. In the end, this is still _my_ kingdom, and I shall protect it however I see fit."

She turned to exit the room, Ashira close behind her. "One of them is supposed to be here in a short while to inquire of occurrences in your settlement," she continued. "Your history especially will likely be of interest to them, so I would prepare your responses for them. Which does remind me: how go the works in the foundry?"

"Rather well, actually," Ashira replied, for the first time that afternoon gracing her expression with a small smile. "The new ore you unearthed for us in the mountain to the west takes well to smelting, and we are preparing new storehouse walls and supports with it. The workers are behaving as well, so we have no setbacks."

"Workers," Mononoke said dourly. "You know my opinions of them, and your use of that term for them. If they toil in labor, they should reap some recompense for it."

"Their recompense is not being punished for their crimes or the crimes of their kingdom," Ashira quipped, her face turning dark, before she relaxed. "But I won't speak of it now then; only another thing to anger both of us. Our profits and therefore resources for structure and defense are building, so even if the Alagaesians strike out at us again we will soon be untouchable by them, and we can drive the Wyrewolves back north and clear this region fully."

They entered a new room marked most prominently by a long mahogany table, the walls lined with shelves full of books, scrolls, and maps, and Ashira pulled one of said maps out of its place to roll it out across the table. The wolf came to stand behind her and look it over simultaneously. They conversed and discussed the plans and schematics laid out on the sheet of parchment for several minutes before a knock at the doorway brought their attentions up.

"I apologize for the interruption,' the guard said, peering around the frame from where he stood, "but some of the riders you permitted here have arrived at the gates seeking a meeting."

"Thank you, Cho-el," Mononoke acknowledged. "Let them in and show them this way."

Cho-el nodded and promptly turned away, reappearing a minute later leading in the riders as promised. The red-headed woman and the stout, black-haired young man with the horned helmet walked in trailed by their dragons (who due to size remained in the hall) and a pair of the apparently non-dragon reptiles that Mononoke had been told were called Metaraptors.

"I am somewhat surprised that the one in the black coat isn't here with you," Mononoke mused casually, looking them over. "Please, take a seat, those of you who can."

"Hawken is scouting the trade routes with the Alagaesians at the moment to try and pinpoint if the hunters might be dragging our Night Fury in under our noses somewhere," Ember responded as all four visitors sat down in the ornate chairs that were scattered somewhat haphazardly around the table. "We're the ones assigned to this task for now. And, I apologize in advance for any crass remarks that might be made by Snotlout here, since it's been proven nearly inevitable."

"Hey! I'm not that bad!" Snotlout protested, crossing his arms. "Matter of opinion, that's all that is."

"The unanimous vote that was taken a few months ago to label you as group blockhead suggests otherwise," Natasha drawled with a smirk.

Snotlout gaped like a hooked fish for a moment. "I…well…shut up Natasha," he finally pouted.

"Alright, enough," Ember toned warningly, her hair catching the slightest glow at its tips, before it faded and she turned back to Mononoke and Ashira. "Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, and I promise I'll try not to waste it. Your Highness Mononoke, have the people you sent to the traders' port returned yet?"

"No, but it should not be more than another day or two."

"Damn," Ember muttered half under her breath. "There goes that line for now then. Alright, then how about this: you said that you were already overseeing this area more than twenty-five years ago; how long have you been around? A long lifespan for most wolves is ten years, and even twenty is usually unheard of."

"My line is somewhat unique," Mononoke responded, smirking slightly at the inquiry. She knew it would come up eventually. "We have all been bearers of long lives, and mine personally extends back to more than fifty years; almost forty of those I have been queen here. Since my first years I have as well held the powers I control now."

"Ruler for forty, and you said attacks only began around twenty-five ago," Ember mused quietly, her hand coming up to her chin. "Do you know if there is any pattern at all? Where have attacks occurred?"

"At least once in every village in the region, and it may be as little as five days or as long as several months between raids, with no signals or other signs of warning or for why," the wolf answered. She shook her head. "Attacks happen more often nearer to the sea, but there are also more villages and animals there as well so that is at best coincidental. We cannot predict when they occur or why, only that they happen and have grown in frequency, more rapidly in recent years. I have sought seers, diviners, the priests of other gods for information, but they have all turned up for naught."

Ember barely masked her shudder of distaste at the mention of such crafts; she wasn't alone either, but though Snotlout didn't hide it at all no one said anything luckily. It wasn't wise to comment on that now, and she knew others could have visions; she did after all, but she was not the best to argue the point of belief nor was this the time.

Instead, she hummed disappointedly and leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands. "So we're remaining on empty leads for this. Figures, nothing ever comes easy." She reached up with a sigh to rub her temple, before looking to Ashira. "Perhaps though I can inquire further of a different subject we are still remiss on. Lady Ashira, my friends and I know you are here as an ally in trade and arms with Queen Mononoke, but you otherwise are rather enigmatic."

"What do you wish to know?" Ashira responded, guardedly despite the open question.

"Well, how did you first end up here if you hail from Japan?"

The older woman nodded and laced her fingers. "I see. The kingdom I hail from has for centuries been plagued by war, both from the various factions among the islands of our lands as well as from dragons. I am sorry if it offends you, but I was raised to distrust if not hate them for the sake of my survival, and I've seen little yet to change that distrust. The old stories say that when our ancestors arrived, the dragons attacked on principle, unwilling to share space or resources and wishing us gone. They were led by great monsters that controlled them, but even after the monsters were finally brought down a half-century ago the animosity from the infernal beasts continued. The battles drove us to create new weapons, advanced firearms and machines which have let us also become skilled tradesmen, and that is what brought me to these shores."

Ashira turned and gestured to Mononoke. "Our trade was only beginning to expand when I led an envoy to Láng Chéng, and upon reaching here and being informed of Mononoke's plight, we agreed that a mutual alliance would benefit both of our people. She possesses vast resources, us skills no other has. Mind you, despite that I do not like dragons, I do not want any sort of war either, for it is terrible for most trade and prosperity, but we are preparing nevertheless if it is to come to that."

"I can give an explanation for your plight in your home country," Ember offered, holding out a hand, "and perhaps an answer why it never ended. Were the monsters you mentioned like giant dragons in appearance, shades of red and blue?"

"You have heard of them?"

"I killed one with my dragon Orha, Hawken brought down another one, and a mutual friend of ours killed a third in order to end a three-century war where we came from. They were once dragons, but swayed centuries ago and mutated by a powerful sorceress named Jezebel to destroy alliances around the world with dragons, so she could more easily take them out. I assume yours were around for a very long time, and now the dragons left are just acting on the only knowledge they have: humans attacked them, so they fight back. It's like the hostile dragons still found where we're from every now and then."

"Yeah, like that Shellfire we had to chase off last year," Snotlout huffed. " _That_ was a fun day."

Ashira didn't look convinced. "A convenient knowledge you have on that," she mused, "but you still can't provide any explanations for the ferals here. Can you really say on that, that aggressive action is not their true nature?"

"We don't know everything about dragons," Ember returned, "or what can affect them. But I do know that they are not violent by nature. Defensive yes, territorial some, but not inherently destructive; what good does it do any species to be constantly at war with another that could benefit it instead? And there are millions of toxins in this world, same with diseases, and this could be a new one we're not familiar with that affects dragons in strange ways. But until we find a dragon that has literally just gone savage, or locate a source, we're at a dead end searching." She sat back, hair glowing slightly as she reigned in her passion. "But arguing won't help either," she sighed, unwittingly echoing the words shared between Mononoke and Ashira only minutes before. "You came as an ally, but you seem fairly settled here to be just that. Do you travel between Japan and here, or do you simply live in this kingdom now?"

"It would be costlier for constant travel," Ashira responded, "especially as often as I am here now. Plus the land here is rich with the resources that we need for our trade. No, Mononoke granted me and my people a place to settle, near the volcano where the geothermal vents make foundry work easy. We have contacts that travel east twice a year to ensure relations are maintained, but our trade center for here lies where it profits both our people best. Aside from the traders who bring with them the so-called 'Gronckle Iron' on occasion, we have the finest steel and metal works there are. On that subject however, I must say I am curious."

She leaned forward and gestured to the scabbard that rested at Ember's side. "I only saw glimpses, but you bear weapons with a greater luster than I have ever seen before." Her eyes glinted with intrigued fascination. "It rivals the shine of a polished silver mirror even. How did you make such a thing?"

"There's no way you ever could, so what's it matter? OW!" Snotlout cried out, leaning away from Silas' thick tail.

"Apologies for his outbursts, again," the raptor said derisively, "though despite his being blunt he is right. The Mysteel in our weapons and armor is forged by another of our friends, a gifted woman who can alter metals and minerals with her touch and various forms of energy. There isn't a forge or foundry that could replicate it."

Ashira's expression shifted to one of mild disappointment, but she held her composure. "A shame," she toned. "Such a shine would be a beautiful thing in carvings along the barrel of a well-made gun."

"Maybe in part, but you certainly wouldn't want a bullet made out of it," Ember cautioned, hoping to avoid the topic of what they were using the guns for at least.

"Oh? And why not?"

"Mysteel is harder than diamonds, stronger than titanium; a bullet made from that might get stuck in a Mysteel barrel, and it would simply rip apart any other metal you tried to put it through. There's a reason we use it for the more conventional weapons and armor only."

"So you have knowledge of how guns work then? I hadn't known others invented them yet. It would be a detriment to our trade if so."

This brought a laugh from Ember. "No, technically no one has on this earth unless you count Jezebel with a couple odd weapons of hers," she said, "and she had time on her side and still lost in the end along with most of her creations. No, Hawken is…let's say he's from somewhere where technology is far more advanced than this world has ever managed, and thanks to him I've fired guns that can hit a target the size of an apple dead-on from over two miles away."

She couldn't miss the gleam of intrigue that appeared in the silk-dressed woman's eyes, and hurriedly added, "Mind you, even Hawken doesn't carry such weapons unless he's back home, especially since most of the time we don't need them. Nor is that our purpose here; we're trying to fix conflicts, not risk worsening them. If I may, however, I am sure we would like to see the foundry you use; the sources of material at least maybe, as it's possible that digging in the ground around here may have released something that affects dragons and dragons alone. Dangerous chemicals number in the thousands from the earth alone."

A tense silence that followed told Ember and her friends half the story, and she silently filed away a note to tell Hawken later to look into exactly that, before Mononoke broke the stalemate.

"Our…our sources are a prime means of supporting our lifestyle here, so you must understand hesitance to share locations and methods with foreign visitors, especially those we still hold our reservations about for other reasons" she parlayed. "If, however, nothing is found I…may…consider it. The well-being of my kingdom is more valuable than money that can be gained from other sources as well."

"So that means we don't get to go watch guns be made?" Snotlout asked, before flinching when Silas raised his tail again. "What? What did I say?"

"No, we don't," Ember quipped, before sighing. "It's understandable however, and I won't press right now for that. I think all that we can get here has been dealt with if so though, so it's probably time we continue actively searching. Come on Snotlout, before you say anything else dumb."

"Hey, Hawken said there's no such thing as a stupid question."

"He's also noted that's mostly just an old phrase to make people inquisitive, and that there are plenty of stupid answers and stupid people to make up for the question part."

"Well, I…shut up Ember."

The two riders stood up and gave respectful bows (one of them admittedly after some coercion) alongside the two raptors, before they exited the room and left down the hall, their dragons moving to trail them.

Mononoke watched them leave with a curious expression. "Dragons that can speak fluently in common tongue and claims of other worlds," she mused. "Every moment spent speaking with them only gets stranger."

"Do you believe the stories they spout?" Ashira asked warily. "Guns that can fire over such distances, and other worlds that some hail from? Saying they know the origins of monsters that existed for centuries before they ever could?"

"I am a god that cannot be harmed by human weapons, and has sway over the earth and the animals that roam it; are their claims so far beyond that?"

Ashira did not answer immediately, pursing her lips in thought. Finally she let out a breath and replied, "Perhaps I will defer to you on that one. For now though, daylight fades and I believe I must go to take care of errands of importance now before the day wanes completely. And, I wish to make sure we have no unwelcome guests sneaking around my foundry against our request, so I will bid my leave for now. If you require new weapons or ammunition, should another raid occur, you know who to send to us." With a bow she too swept out of the room, picking up the rifle she had left by the main palace doors and slinging it over her shoulder. Mononoke watched her leave, before glancing toward the window behind her, her thoughts falling back to wondering why things could never run smoothly.

Outside in the courtyard, Ashira pulled aside one of her own guardsmen on her way toward the path to her residence. "Gather our stores and lock them down," she ordered him in a low voice. "Keep the ore under guard, and ensure no one is acting against Mononoke under our noses. The new riders are suspicious of us and our practices, and I do _not_ wish to give them any further reason to attempt to pin blame on me for this. Is that understood?"

The guard nodded, and she sent him off ahead of her. As he disappeared, Ashira looked around her and scowled. It was terrible enough she had to tolerate these newcomers lest she anger the wolf, but now that they were all being put under scrutiny by them only made it like a burning rash upon her back.

* * *

"These roads are almost tragically empty," Amethyst said softly, looking down at the path far below us with despondent eyes. Not that we wanted to find Tsefan in the clutches of some revolting cage under hunter guard, but it was too much to hope for more and we wanted simply to find him at this point.

She was right though; alongside Jaetsu and Caelia, Fenrir, Sasha, Teshra, Rachel and I had headed out early that morning to follow old trade routes through the interior, and of the two we had followed for a ways so far, both had been marked by clear signs of disuse and little else. Water had carved deep gullies into both, forest undercover had begun to creep in and retake the once clear paths, and in some locations full succession had nearly eliminated them altogether. The conclusion that naturally followed: even the dragon hunters did not likely pass through here often if at all, so Tsefan would not be within the continent's interior within close range of this end of the trade routes, and any answers for the savage plague were not likely to pop up nearby either. A search this way was almost bound to be fruitless.

"Since the start of the feral attacks, the trade over the mountains here has nearly ceased," Jaetsu explained as we began our turn around to head back. "Caravans head north during summer to circumnavigate the Gobi, and south in winter to pass through the corridors within Tibet and Alagaesia itself. Ships of course always approach along the coast, but they rarely need worry about attacks; marine dragons have never factored heavily in the raids, for reasons unknown."

"But there have been aquatic species involved occasionally," Sasha intoned, ears perking in hopes that we might have something that could turn into a lead. At Jaetsu's nod however, that hope was lost. Even one marine individual affected meant that it couldn't be traced solely to an afflicter of terrestrial species.

"So your people really have been nigh-completely cut off in the trades out here," Fenrir said sympathetically. "Are there people who do live among these routes still at all?"

"A small handful of nomads," Jaetsu affirmed. "But they remain among the desert oases or steppe regions rather than the forested mountains here; though they rarely hurt people, the Wyrewolves will take livestock and horses, and hold enough intimidation in and of themselves to drive off those even without such large animals among them. We are not bothered as we have our own dragons to guard our animals, and Mononoke and her wolves are trained and work well enough with her men to fend them off, but anyone else finds it hard to remain here."

"What do these 'Wyrewolves' look like anyway?" Amethyst inquired. "I've never heard of them before we came here, so I don't think their descriptions have traveled much beyond Asia."

Jaetsu huffed, frowning as if trying to make such a description was an unpleasant chore. Perhaps it was. "Imagine a hybrid between a wolf and a lizard," he said, "large ears and a slender body built for running but with a long tail attached and scales to cover. They're not terrible large, maybe 15-20 feet long at best, but they hunt in packs and are colored to blend with their home, dappled in forest greens, browns, and reds, and eyes of silver to sapphire. They are beautiful in some ways, but impossible to describe unless you have seen one. To catch a glimpse if you're not their target is nigh impossible."

::And they are one of the species that never fully gained their sentience,:: Caelia added. ::Though they can speak Dragonese, they are to us like the cavemen of old would be to humans now, driven by pack instinct above all.::

"Well, that's not something we're entirely unfamiliar with at least," Sasha said with a small tone of relief, leaning forward from his position on Amethyst's back. "Back home we've got Cavern Crashers, and they're not even sentient at all, just intelligent animals altogether."

"Unfortunately still ornery, fire-breathing animals at that," Teshra grumbled from Sasha's shoulder. "But, so long as we don't draw attention to ourselves from them we should be good, right?"

"You would be fine if you did not intend to search constantly among the forests and towns," Jaetsu disagreed. "If one roams, they will find them. Just…avoid being out at night, or in the twilight times, and it will be safer. I –aaahhhh!"

Just our luck, we all hit a dead spot in the air, sending everyone unexpectedly dropping through the sky and flailing. Caelia recovered first, followed by me (much to Fenrir's relief), while Teshra and Amethyst continued cartwheeling through the air for a while. When they managed to finally catch the wind under their wings again, they coasted back up to join us, Sasha and Rachel both bearing hilariously frazzled expressions.

"W-well," Amethyst said shakily, "let's, uh, get back to the city before we hit anything else like that pocket there again; I hope Ember and Snotlout found out more than we did here."

"You mean just Ember; Snotlout was probably just a nuisance as always," Teshra quipped, settling back carefully on Sasha's shoulders as the tiger relaxed again.

"Oh, you mean like you?" Sasha joked.

"Hey, I'm no worse than you are!"

"Nah, you're just a flying rat with scales, admit it. OW!"

A Sasha seized up and jerked away, Teshra leapt off and floated alongside Amethyst, a pleased look on her muzzle after having let a sizeable shock off into the big cat. She caught my eye though, and immediately decided to float on the other side of Amethyst while we flew back eastward.

An hour or so later, after we had said goodbye to Jaetsu and Caelia as they split off toward their community, we approached the outskirts of Láng Chéng and found the others resting by the walls of a planted garden. Orha spotted us first and nodded, signaling the other four to stand up, and we all moved to a more secluded courtyard within the tree-lined garden for discussion, those of us in the air landing as the others walked in to join us.

"Anything worth following up on?" Ember queried hopefully, only to deflate when I shook my head.

"If they brought Tsefan to Asia, he's either now on the coast here or somewhere off in the Eurasian border region," I said, "and there's nothing to find whatsoever for the ferals unless distant nomads are responsible, which I would find unlikely. What about on your end?"

"We found out more about the background of Lady Ashira and her people," Natasha said, "such as why the Japanese woman is even more reluctant to trust us than Queen Mononoke is."

"Oh? Why so?"

"There used to be Red Deaths in her archipelago as well, for so long that the dragons attack people there because that's all they've ever learned to do. It's why they developed guns too, for defense against the species that live there."

"That does put her under suspicion for another reason too though," Ember said. "Could be like another Drago case; someone with a bad experience distrusts everyone and wants to take the problem into their own hands. I wouldn't put it past her at all to link up with a group like the hunters in order to get rid of dragons everywhere so she could have her idea of peace."

"Yeah, with the weapons she's got they'd probably offer her everything to get her on their side," Snotlout agreed. "She's got resources and weapons no one else does, they've got connections; I'd bet there's something there."

"And her community, or part of it at least, sits almost directly between Láng Chéng and the trading port to the south," I thought aloud, recalling what I'd seen from the air. "That's got to be theirs anyway. If she is involved in this mess, I'd bet they would hide anything they're using in the forests between them. Alright, we've got our next heading: we'll sweep the forests from west to east, from near the Alagaesian village to the coast, and south around the port. They probably wouldn't be dumb enough to put anything in the port city itself, but anywhere nearby is a possibility."

I turned to Amethyst and Sasha, looking from them to Ember and Snotlout. "Search for caves, hidden buildings, dugouts or trap doors; anything that might signal a site for a hidden storehouse or base."

"What if the hunters or Ashira's men happen upon us while we're out there though?" Teshra asked. "If they are involved, won't they send word back to Viggo if they see us?"

"Then your other responsibility is to keep yourselves out of sight," I said. "Until we find something, that's the rule: we don't want to attract attention, especially since they may move Tsefan if he's here and we get close or whatever other operations they might have going on. Stealth is of utmost importance. Snotlout, that means I need you to be as vigilant as you can while you're out and about with us or anyone else. No bravado or goofing off."

The Viking scoffed at the thought. "Yeah, right, come on! Stealth is my middle name."

"Really? I thought it was asshat," Teshra quipped with a smoldering grin.

"Teshra!" I scolded, but unfortunately the effectiveness was diminished by my failing attempts to avoid laughing.

"You're not funny Tesh," Snotlout groused, folding his arms. "I'll show you, somehow."

"And I'll eat spinach if you do," The Terror volleyed back. "And judging by the giggles around the courtyard, I'm totally funny."

"Okay, enough!" I barked, finally losing the humor entirely. "If your shenanigans are done, does anyone else have any pressing questions?"

There was silence for a moment before Sasha raised his paw, and I felt that special form of dread well up, the one when you know you'll regret letting him speak. But, I did anyway. "Yes, Sasha?"

"Yeah, just wondering," he said, "why does the Chinese wolf running this place have a Japanese name?"

"Ookay, no more pressing questions on the subject apparently! Let's go!"

* * *

As the trade envoy left, Rigel Rayong scowled and turned back into the storehouse behind him, locking the door after he stepped inside and heading for the room at the far back of the building. Screeches and calls from several exotic animals assailed him from nearby, as well as the perfuming smells of various rare spices and herbs (that luckily overpowered the stench of waste from the animals). He ignored it all however; what he'd just discovered was more concerning than keeping up with feeding the merchandise right then.

Reaching the room, he pushed the door open with sudden force, making it bounce off the wall behind it and startling the stout, black-haired man inside.

"Rigel! What are you-?"

"Traders from Mononoke's city were just here asking about rare dragons," Rigel interrupted, "particularly rare, _black_ dragons. You do recall the message from Viggo a couple of weeks ago, right, Lien?"

Lien fell silent for a moment, expression darkening at the unwelcome news. "So riders have come this far already? What's he want us to do, act as distractions so they don't head off to find the dragon elsewhere?" He let out a groan and began rummaging through a drawer in the desk he sat behind, coming up with a cigar. "It's really one or the other, draw no attention or risk ruining his other plans here, right? He should know that."

"Supposedly the riders can't do anything at all without risking harm to their _precious Night Fury,_ " Rigel countered, "but I agree with you. However, it ain't safe not to do anything at all either. If they start snooping around and find the lab…"

Lien lit his cigar and took a long draw from it, clouding the air with smoke as he turned to look at the map on the wall. "We still have the costumes and the pilfered guns from the Japanese colony, yeah?"

"The last I checked, yes. Why?"

"Redirect the suspicions and animosity methinks. Mononoke mistrusts the dragons, especially those of the Alagaesians thanks to the beautiful actions of our predecessors. Ashira and her people have hated dragons ever since they left their old country too. And of course the Alagaesian bastards hate the both of them for doing what we wanted them to do. If something sets them off, the riders will be caught in the middle and forget about us until we can launch the full-scale plan on Viggo's order. It should only be a few weeks anyway if the pelt keeps doing his job like he has."

Rigel grumbled reluctant assent, waving away another noxious cloud of smoke from Lien's cigar as he moved to the far end of the room to look over a second map and set of schematics. To any outsider it would have appeared a random set of points and unlabeled number lists, but that was for a reasons. The hunter traced his finger over the plotted points with a neutral expression.

"If we need a distraction then, should we set up another raid? Huan village here hasn't been bothered for a while."

"Only if you can get a party out there without the riders seeing you," Lien quipped. "But I leave that to you, as it'd be a good start. I'll set up the catalyst to set off the Alagaesians and Ashira in the meantime, and then I must check in on production."

"Yes, I've been meaning to ask by the way," Rigel mused with a twisted grin, "how has the mutt been cooperating? I hope we haven't had any issues since that last blow-up of his."

"Not a one. _John's_ been reprimanded properly. All the better too; he knows the serum's effect best and how to make it the most potent. Has Viggo ever said how he got here though? Such an odd creature; certainly ain't one of Mononoke's wolves or anything."

"Please, you know Viggo; if you don't need to know, you'll never find out. But we could use another; that deadline approaches, production being upped would be nice."

Lien chuckled and tapped the ash off the end of his cigar. "We'll be in place soon enough. We just need to be careful until then. Now, I believe there are some animals out there that need feeding, yes? Get moving before our customer arrives."

"Screw you, you could help out. We're same rank here, you know."

"Me? I'm the coordinator, not the caretaker."

"Yeah, all I hear are excuses. Ugh, smelly animals…"

* * *

 **A/N- Life is hectic, not sure if trying to make predictions on when chapters come out is really working...I'm at least managing once a month though if not every 3 weeks, so...and at that rate this book will continue to be updated for quite some time methinks.**

 **Anyway, slower chapter, but even the tedious details are important. We have some more background on Mononoke and Ashira now, as well as the first look into what the hunters are messing with in the region. I've dropped some hints too on some major future events and characters to be met, let me know what your predictions are for them!**

 **And as always, any and all thoughts, suggestions, predictions etc. should be submitted in your reviews! Hearing back is an energy boost for a harried writer.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	18. Chapter 17: Grasping Straws

**A/N- With this chapter, Search for Tsefan will reach nearly 250 pages and 134,000 words. I know this is coming out a bit later than usual (middle of the week, I blame work), but it's a long one which I hope makes up for it a bit. Also, thank you to those handful of readers still sticking with me on this...**

 **Read on!**

* * *

Chapter 17

Grasping Straws

/

 _We've got no clue, we've got no light_

 _We have no paths on which to turn_

 _There's nothing here to tell us where_

 _Not even any bridges to burn_

 _So give us hope, one fleeting glance_

 _Something to show us the way_

 _For until we gain a desperate insight_

 _We have nothing but a hopeless day_

 _-0-_

"Wait, wait, so not only does he actually exist, but you _actually_ sold him that rug?!"

"No joke; it was Ophelia's idea way back when, but I was the one that went through with selling it to him. Regretted it soon after of course when the shrew figured out what we'd given him, and as you all know it eventually ended up being Judy who got my skin off the hook."

The rabbit in mention snorted. "Yeah, right. More like coincidence and Fru's big heart that saved the both of us," she drawled. "Still don't know how he keeps that pool so cold even in summer; far as I know we don't have refrigerator tech back home yet."

"So, is that actually her name?" Astrid asked, looking behind her to Judy. "Fru Fru? Knowing the traditional Narnian names, even if they've started fading, I'm kind of surprised."

Judy shook her head. "Nah, that's just her nickname. Full name's Fruchina, and their last name's actually Bigtail, more a callback to older times. They were actually part of the reason that so many of the Narnian races survived the Calormen/Telmarine overtake, because much as I hate to say it crime often knows how to best fight crime. Nick's living proof of that."

"And yet, he still took a full three months before he figured out what that odor on the rug was," Nick mused (ignoring Judy's jab), before chuckling. "I can just imagine he was the 'butt' of a lot of jokes behind closed doors after that. Gruff as they were to visitors, Boris and Kevin had some great senses of humor."

"More likely that they were plotting how to make a fox's butt into a rug behind those doors."

"Come on, Carrots, you know I wouldn't make a good rug. I'd be far more elegant as a nice coat."

"I'll remember that the next time you decide to hide my fur brush in the couch cushions."

"So who else from the movie actually exists?" Holly asked, twisting on Nara's saddle to face the two mammals better. "The films we've run into before, there are usually a lot of parallels."

"Well, Bogo for one," Judy said, "though he goes by Tavaloss with most of his friends or superiors. Bellwether is sitting in jail, but she's a little mountain goat, not a sheep; none of the classic 'domesticated' animals were given sentience in Narnia, just us 'wild' animals. Uh, there's Clawhauser –sweets loving and all- Fangmeyer, Wolfard, my parents, Gideon…"

"Heh heh, don't forget Finnick," Nick chuckled. "Little bundle of joy he is."

'Finnick, huh?" Hiccup laughed. "He as brash and snappish as the film version?"

"Ab-solutely. Though he did cool down a little when I helped him get hired by the palace to guard the wildwood stock."

"The fennec's working for Caspian; I'd love to see that," Toothless mused. "How's he not run his mouth and get kicked out?"

"He's learned to curb the language," Nick replied as he propped his head up on a paw, "at least most of the time. And I think Caspian and company are just amused by him, so there's that. Shorter than Judy, nearly Reepicheep's height, but the attitude would be better fitting a full-grown jackal." He fell back into chuckling again. "Heh, I remember when he blew up in front of Bogo that one time though; thought the room would catch fire with the tension between the two of them."

"But Clawhauser was there to defuse the situation at least," Judy agreed. "Leave it to the chubby cheetah to make anyone laugh."

"Got another question about him too," Nara said. "He as pastry-loving as the one we know?"

Judy smirked. "Okay, so he's not quite _that_ well-rounded, but he does love visiting the local bakery that's run by Trufflehunter's sister Jeanna. You want something from him, bring in a fresh turnover; Nick, don't even _think_ about it."

The look on the fox's face told everyone he was definitely cooking something up, and in an attempt to convey instead shock and innocence he immediately folded his ears back and gave a soft, deferring smile. No one was convinced.

Conversation continued for a while, discussing further the details of Nick and Judy's home, before talk waned as the sun climbed into the heights of the sky and they moved toward the next island. Already they'd checked a handful of uninhabited spits of land as they moved more or less northward through the archipelago, only to find nothing but the occasional wild dragon (most of whom had nothing to offer when asked by those who spoke Dragonese). The next one they were approaching was a little larger, a little further north, and hopefully it would hold at least a clue as to where Viggo could be hiding Tsefan. If that failed, maybe at least where the hunter himself was tucked away. What they'd scrounged up thus far had left a lot to be desired.

 _Not a single thing to help with our case either,_ Nick thought with disappointment, leaning forward and looking ahead at the ocean and distant land blankly. _Maybe the guys who went south will bring back something and we can head there after this mess is done. Hmm, or maybe Aslan just wanted us out of the way so he could give someone else a chance, like that Savage guy. Carrots-wannabe, that's what he is. I wonder if that's why they transferred him up north. Not like anyone could be like Judy anyway though; she's one-of-a-kind in this world._

Half-consciously, the fox's gaze drifted over to his partner, a ways ahead of him and Holly and riding on Thorn with Astrid. Judy was fully at attention as usual; even after the many days they'd been with the Riders the thrill of flying hadn't yet left her, and the rabbit's tail was twitching away with excitement.

 _If you can't call a bunny cute, then I'm gonna have to label her adorable,_ Nick chuckled to himself. _Don't know how she doesn't see it, scary and cuddly all in one. Gee, where would I be without her? Definitely not on a dragon's back flying off into adventure. Heh, probably still be back hustling mammals out of their hard-earned money with Finnick. Yeah, this is more fun. Oh irony, a rabbit was a godsend for the fox._

Unbeknownst to him, as he daydreamed to himself, a dazed, lazy smile began stretching across his muzzle.

 _Can't live without you now, can I? Not that you'd let me, strong-willed as you are. Determined too, and smart, beautiful, attractive, cute fluffy tail and hold on wait a minute where are you taking this Nick?!_

"Does Judy know that you ogle her when she's not looking?" Holly's voice broke in with perfect timing and great amusement at the very moment Nick had realized where his mind was drifting. The fox's eyes snapped wide as his ears folded back, before he sat up straight and folded his arms, his hustler's mask slamming down hard over his expression.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he retorted. "Everyone knows that when you get lost in thought you don't know where you're looking."

"Right, except your gaze wasn't wandering anywhere else except Judy, and lost in thought you still tend to fixate on something closest to what your mind was on. You were daydreaming about your partner, admit it."

"Daydreaming about berries and soft beds more like," Nick deflected, though he worried his voice wavered under the knowing gaze of the teen. If anyone could read someone as well as he could, it was Holly the Empath. "We've been up here for hours and I'm getting hungry, and a saddle is not the most comfortable place to relax."

"Riiight. We'll get lunch when we reach the next island, but come on, you were locked on her tail as hard as Toothless focuses on a fish. You got a bunny fluff fetish?"

"I have my own fluffy tail if I did, thank you very much miss busybody."

"That's not the same, and you know it, fox."

Nick was glad that he had red fur, knowing that without it the blush it hid would have given away his façade without any further question. He sighed however, resigned to being teased by the teen. "I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise, am I?"

"Not a chance."

"Well, in that case, what about that Caleb guy I heard Astrid mention to you about? Want to share your thoughts?"

"Not ashamed that I liked him, so what would I hide? But every teen goes through phases, and it's kind of obvious that you're just deflecting the conversation. You know it would be a lot easier to admit it."

A vulpine snout turned defiantly up to the sky. "I'll not be called a liar by doing so."

"Actions speak louder than words."

"What are you guys talking about over there?" Judy suddenly called, both of her big ears swiveled in their direction as her head followed.

"Nothing!" Nick hurriedly yelled. _Damn bunny ears; how much did she hear?_

"Nick was ogling you!" Holly called back with a jovial grin, completely enjoying this sudden opportunity.

"Was not!"

"Yes he was! He was staring at your butt!"

"Daydreaming drifts and staring are two different things!"

"Not if you're daydreaming about your favorite rabbit who happens to be right there!"

"You stubborn girl, do you not listen?"

"Definitely stubborn, won't deny, but I listen to more than the words on your lips."

"You-you're reading way too much into it then," Judy stuttered, avoiding Nick's eyes and hiding her own now-blushing ears. "We're just friends, come on! Best friends maybe, but just friends! No one's ogling anyone, right Nick?"

"And Hiccup and I started off as enemies," Astrid drawled, winking at Holly and causing the rabbit behind her to groan.

"Not helping!" Judy complained.

Quicksilver joined in laughing from his spot on Embron's back. "Better get used to it Judy, teasing's kind of what friends do!" Then his look grew pensive. "Though, one would have thought hanging with Nick should have taken care of that already."

Snickers followed as the two Narnians scowled. Nick turned his head again to Holly. "I blame you for this."

"You're welcome!"

"You're asking to go a round. I'll show you how well Fox-Fu works!"

"If Nara doesn't buck you off first, you'd lose; I train with Astrid, remember?"

"Buck me off? I thought these straps were unbreakable."

"You aren't," the Nadder quipped, though she didn't hide a grin.

Nick crossed his arms again. "Fine; I'll unhook myself and then catch up with the jetpack."

"You'd have to be able to get back on before your pack runs out," Holly pointed out smugly. "Otherwise someone would have to fish your soggy tail out of the ocean."

"Ugh, fox abuse! I call fox abuse!"

"It's only abuse if it's physical; this is just harassment."

Nick flattened his ears and looked past her over to where Hiccup and Toothless were gliding. "How do you turn these two off?" he asked.

Hiccup laughed. "I think the only way is to stuff their mouths with food, but even that doesn't always work. Holly doesn't have an 'off' button."

"My family's been looking for one for years," Holly snickered. "Good luck finding one only a couple weeks after meeting me."

"Uh, sorry to break up the festivities," Fishlegs called, "but we're approaching the island; no habitations visible through the binoculars so it might be a good hideout location."

"Alright gang," Hiccup began, noticing out of the corner of his eye the two Narnians letting out sighs of relief as he switched into "leader mode," "it'll be easier to split up and cover the island that way; keep your coms on standby and don't try to take on anything on your own. Keep a low profile if possible too."

The little spit of land, like so many in the archipelago, was mountainous in the center with sweeping flat forested land extending out to the shores. The mountains were curious, not immediately volcanic in appearance but craggy and eroded, like limestone eaten away by eons of rain.

"There're going to be a lot of caves here," Fishlegs commented as they glided above the edges of the tree line, preparing to land. "Probably a honeycomb underneath. If the hunters don't use this place, I'd…uh, I'd be afraid of what would keep them at bay. Keep the barriers on and, uh…don't antagonize any dragons you find."

"No argument there," Judy said. "I'd rather not tick off a wild dragon; that grumpy Snafflefang on the last island was bad enough."

They landed in a small clearing and dismounted, Hiccup turning to point at each of his friends. "Okay, Phoenix, Nick, Judy, you guys go with Holly and Nara, cover the south; Fishlegs, take Jake and Quicksilver to the east end of the crags. Embron, you're with Astrid and I on the west. Stay low, quiet, report anything you find before taking action. If there are hunters here, we don't want to let them know we're about if we don't have to. And if it's just dragons, well, most of you know what to do."

The others nodded and, gathering into their groups, turned to trek to their designated sectors of the island. As Nick and Judy disappeared behind Holly and company, Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance before they began trudging through the forest themselves, their dragons and Embron following behind or at their sides.

The trees here were more lively than those back on Drekki; insects were humming and birds singing, through it was still a northern forest and so cloaked in the usual coating of leftover snow and eerie ambience.

 _Just like home,_ Hiccup mused, keeping his eyes peeled around him for signs of anything suspicious or promising. Or, more accurately, he was watching the dragons. What with their stronger senses, they would likely notice things long before he or Astrid did, and so were the best chance of finding anything. Without anything coming up immediately though, the young Viking's mind began to drift as it so often did to various thoughts and worries.

 _Are we going about this right?_ he asked himself. _I know we all want to find him as soon as possible, but is this just wasting time? Whoever was responsible back on Berk has probably long since been found out by now, so maybe they would know something more. Or perhaps we should set up by a trade port, disguise one of us and try and wheedle out info…but would Viggo have anyone who's really involved out on the trade paths?_

"Alright, you're mulling over something," Astrid suddenly spoke up, loud enough for him to hear but not enough to announce their presence to the surroundings. She slowed down and looked over at her husband, hands on her hips. "What's got you worried?"

"Worried?" Hiccup blustered. "Wha-why would you think I'm worried?"

"Besides my being married to you and therefore knowing how you tick?" Astrid countered. "You don't have a poker face and wear your emotions on your sleeve Hiccup. Come on, what's up?"

Hiccup let out a sigh and slowed to a stop, bringing the others to halt with him though the dragons continued scanning around them, and he turned to meet Astrid's eyes. It took a moment for him to finally say it though.

"Are we going about this right?" he finally asked.

Astrid blinked, not quite expecting that, before she quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she queried. "You mean looking for Tsefan? Of course we need to, but"-

"No, no, not just looking for him," Hiccup said, shaking his head, "but how we're actually attempting to do so. Yeah, if we keep searching eventually we'll turn over every rock Viggo could possibly use to hide things, but our earth isn't mapped like Hawken's even if it is similar; we could wander for years and find nothing, especially if Viggo starts playing cat-and-mouse and moves Tsefan around under our noses. Are we doing anything worthwhile, or just chasing ghosts out here?"

Astrid's face fell slightly, and she reached over to place a hand on his shoulder. "I understand your frustration, believe me," she empathized, "and running around for two weeks with nothing but a vague idea is infuriating. But, sometimes there's not much other choice; we don't have any leads to work with, and we can't just attack Viggo's men to get info without risking Tsefan."

"Yes, but we need something to narrow down the search, or we're lost!" Hiccup quipped. "We know Viggo won't keep Tsefan anywhere near the major trade routes, and that he's using this to get his other plans up and running against us; if we take up too much time, whatever he's planning could sweep the rug out from under us."

"If you keep worrying about all that, the ifs and maybes, then you'll end up with nothing more than a panic attack," Astrid warned, gripping his shoulder more tightly. "And that is the last thing we need from our leader right now. If we keep searching then we'll find clues eventually that can narrow things down, but off the beaten path covers a lot of space and you know it. Viggo may also expect us to only search away from the trades, so he could do the exact opposite; when we find clues to say one way or another than we can go from there, but for now we just need to keep our eyes open. Keep your head in the game."

"Hey, it's not like I've been doing nothing out here!"

"I never said you weren't."

"Kind of sounds like it, along with hints of what sounds like you don't want to do more."

"…You want to repeat that?"

Hiccup huffed, ignoring the warning signs. "I said you sound like you're not willing to try anything else in case it could fail."

Astrid's eyes blazed. "Oh, don't you _dare_ accuse me of not wanting to; you're just _too_ eager to try things! That's not what we need either!"

"If we don't then we're stuck in a box! And Viggo has the key!"

'Thinking outside the box is good when it works, but you're an idiot if you jump outside of it before having any idea of what's on the other side! Sometimes what's needed is to take a step back, take it slow, and figure things out beforehand, okay?"

"Step back and leave my nephew bound in the hands of a psychopath."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Would you two _shut up_ already?!" Embron suddenly snarled, whirling on the pair with Thorn and Toothless glaring from beside him. "You sound like a pair of squabbling toddlers fighting over their favorite bouncy ball, and you've probably just alerted the whole island we're here! We get it, we're all frustrated at our lack of progress and we want something to change, but never mind that we don't have technology to track the culprits with, this is an entire network that has been in place for decades that we're trying to fight against and they're not just going to throw clues at us; it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be a short chase, and we should know that!"

The Nightmare shifted to lean down in front of the two Vikings, his eyes hard. "Hiccup, Astrid is right: we're not in a position right now to try and jump into any new plan without leads to work with, especially since we haven't heard anything from the other two groups. It's dangerous to switch tactics in the middle of the battle, especially without knowing some of the variables at play; as the son of the chief you should _know_ that. If we find something that lets us change our approach, then we will, but until then we need to try and stick with our search and rescue."

Astrid nodded and moved to speak, before the dragon cut her off. "Astrid: be careful what you say and how you say it, because you were sounding a lot more confrontational than you should have and not helping a thing," he scolded. "And both of you: we're all frustrated, okay? Don't think that you're the only ones freaking out; Tsefan is my nephew as well, and you two are arguing in front of his _father_ , let me remind you."

The tension in the air suddenly evaporated as all gazes turned to the present Night Fury, who took to wearing an uncertain expression. Hiccup closed his eyes in a grimace before letting out a breath and looking at Toothless apologetically.

"I'm sorry bud," he breathed out. "Crap; all this is affecting me worse than I thought."

"Don't worry, I forgive both of you," Toothless replied, giving a gummy smile as he moved forward to nudge first his rider, then Astrid. "You're both frustrated over the same thing, looking for Tsefan, and I can't be mad at you wanting to do the best to help him, right? Just…let's just stick together on this okay? We'll…Thorn? What is it?"

The Nadder had gone rigid, head crest spines flared out as she gazed off toward the mountains. ::We're not alone,:: she growled softly.

The mood shifted rapidly. Astrid grasped at the handle of her axe as Hiccup pulled out Inferno, Toothless and Embron taking up defensive positions similar to Thorn. Embron scented the air, trying to catch a trace of the new party as he listened for whatever it was that Thorn had noticed, and at first found nothing but forest.

Then, something rustled nearby, the sound of leaves against scales. "It's a dragon," he warned, "hostile or territorial I'm not sure, but it's approaching."

"How big?" Astrid asked quietly, her eyes scanning alongside the others.

"My size," the Nightmare replied, a lick of fire appearing along his jawline.

Silence took over, save for the occasional rustling leaf, turning the group's collective attention toward the source of the sound but giving nothing more. Then, a flash of movement appeared, something rising above the trees and heading straight for them.

Hiccup and Toothless gained a glimpse of silvery, wide wings only for a moment before the creature shifted, playing the sunlight from above along its flanks and sending a blinding glare in their direction. The three dragons and two people winced and covered their eyes instinctively from the intensity, a second before a jet of fire rushed down at them, the flames so brilliantly blue it seemed as if the sky had melted and flowed down to smother them.

Toothless recovered from the glare first to see the fire approaching, and gave a shriek as he leapt to cover Hiccup and Astrid, the flames flowing around his wings harmlessly until Thorn and Embron recovered from the blinding act and fired back, driving away their attacker.

"What the heck is that thing?" Astrid cried as Toothless backed off of them, looking up for the culprit and finding it rapidly. Moments later, Hiccup laid eyes on it as well.

It had wide, kite-like wings bearing ornately sculpted edges, a long whipping tail and a nearly equally long neck with an angular head, topped with a pair of slick horns and two icy blue eyes glaring down at them with unbridled hostility.

"It's a Silver Phantom," Hiccup breathed with surprise. "I thought they'd been hunted out; Fishlegs would be ecstatic!"

"Well, this one's clearly not happy with _us_ ," Astrid quipped, "so you want to do your Whisperer thing and calm him down before he roasts us alive?"

"Her," Embron interjected, still watching their antagonist carefully.

"What?"

"It's a female."

Astrid rolled her eyes, hands still on her axe. "Okay, fine. Hiccup, you want to try and convince _her_ that we're not a threat before she barbeques us?"

Hiccup sighed, and moved to leap onto Toothless' back. "Embron, flank us, redirect any further flames while we get her attention," he ordered, giving Toothless a nudge to take off. They left the ground, gaining altitude, and turned to face the Phantom with Hiccup holding out Inferno and lighting the blade with a wave to garner her attention.

"Hey girl, I know you're agitated but we're not here to hurt you," he called out, and was replied to with another stream of sapphire flame. Embron twisted his head in the direction of the blast and the flames turned midway, funneling to and wrapping around his form instead.

Seeing this odd, sudden removal of her attack, the Phantom instead shrieked out, ::Leave, you murderers!::

::We are no murderers; we're trying to help, and we've only just arrived here!:: Toothless roared back.

::You let a hunter ride you! They kill us!:: the other dragon protested fiercely, flaring her wings in threat.

"We are not hunters; we're friends!" Hiccup called, deciding to put Inferno away since they now had her attention and the sword clearly wasn't doing any other good. "Hunters took one of our family; we're here to find him, nothing more!" Seeing out of the corner of his eye Astrid rising up on Thorn, he signaled for her to stay back as the Phantom slowed in her agitated flight, regarding Hiccup with a more wary expression.

::You can understand me?:: she asked carefully.

Hiccup nodded. "As well as I can understand my brother here," he replied, patting Toothless' head. "We don't want to pose a threat to you, and won't if you agree to stop firing at us. We're just trying to find answers."

::You…you're not after us?::

"We weren't even aware you existed until you attacked a couple of minutes ago. We're enemies of the hunters, friends of dragons. Not all humans hunt dragons."

As the Phantom began to cautiously calm down, Embron slowly floated up next to Toothless, the blue flames still flickering along his neck and sides and causing Toothless to snort in amusement.

::Blue's not a bad color on you.::

::Shut up.::

Hiccup ignored them keeping an open hand out toward the Phantom. "Maybe you can help us, and we can help you," he said. 'We can't do anything against the hunters until we get my nephew back, but once we do we intend to outright end their attacks on dragons. We know what they've done."

::They stole my eggs.::

"They…they what?!"

The Phantom's head drooped as she let them come nearer, her tone growing subdued. Suddenly, Hiccup saw her hostility for what it truly was: not just defending her home, but the fury of a mother whose children were lost. He'd seen it in Amethyst not long ago, after all.

::Hunters came through here only a couple of moon cycles ago, and while I was out finding food, they slaughtered my mate and stole my eggs,:: she rumbled quietly. ::I returned to find…to find nothing left.:: Her gaze hardened again slightly. ::Not even the great Deaths of the caverns sensed them here, and several of their eggs were stolen as well. We don't know where they went or we would have followed to retrieve our eggs, but they came back for others; we agreed mutually to drive them away so no others would be taken. Three Deaths were driven mad in the process, turning on us before they fell to injuries or vanished.::

"Did they leave anything here, uh…d-do you have a name?" Hiccup asked softly.

::Sunrise,:: the Phantom replied, looking warily at his still outstretched hand. Seeming to finally make a decision, she leaned her head forward to brush her snout against his palm. Almost immediately, Hiccup felt the tension leave her, replaced by longing sadness. ::They were in the deep caves, trying to hide something as they hunted eggs; the Deaths believed it another hunting tool and moved to destroy it, but it may be there still. I can show you, if it might help you find them and our eggs that they took.::

::That would be appreciated,:: Toothless said, ::and if your eggs or hatchlings are still in their possession, we will try to find them when we find their leader.:: He turned to call Thorn up to them, before something the Phantom said clicked in his mind. ::Wait…by 'Deaths' do you mean Whispering Deaths?::

::The great serpentine dragons of the underground, yes.::

The Night Fury looked up to his rider, who was shortly struck by the same realization. "Oh crap, the others," Hiccup groaned. "If they run into one without Sunrise here to intervene..." He rapidly signaled Astrid and Thorn to join them before reaching for his com unit.

The call arrived before he could make his own.

* * *

"So how long have Hiccup and Astrid been together?"

"Approaching two years, about the same age as Tsefan and his siblings. Why?"

"Curiosity. And…Fishlegs is married to that blonde girl that's still on Berk?"

"Uh huh, and her brother to Camicazi, both of whom are off with Eret and Loki. Snotlout and Ember are the only ones, besides my brother of course, who are unmarried now, or un-betrothed."

Judy snickered at the thought that came to her mind with those two names, but Holly shook her head. "Yeah, not going to happen," she said. "Ember would sooner break Lout's legs than marry him. Honestly, I couldn't imagine any girl that would actually fall for him."

"Nah, you just need a surly barmaiden with more of an ego than he's got," Nick drawled. "Might need to insulate the walls to nobody can hear them yelling at night though."

"We could do that," Holly mused, before grinning. "And then lock the doors so that they can't leave either."

Conversation died off again to rare whispers as they reached the base of the stone outcrop rising from the island's center, reaching to the sky like skeletal fingers. Nick eyed the crumbling precipices with wariness; this was definitely a prime location to hide things, provided you knew which footholds would survive being walked upon and which would crack under your weight.

However, Holly clearly had no intention of doing any climbing, as she led them toward an equally questionable looking crevasse in the rock, a dark cavern snaking into the mountain depths.

"Soo, we going to split up here again? We patrol the outside of the complex here while you poke around indoors?" Nick asked half-hopefully.

Holly snorted, partly at the bad idea of making their group smaller in unknown territory and partly just to spite the fox. "We're not splitting up," she replied. "Come on."

"You mean just saunter into a random cave without any clue of what's hiding inside?"

"That is kind of how one finds out what's inside, and since we're looking for a kidnapped dragon, finding out is a requirement."

"Great. Burial for five, just through the door."

"Aren't foxes and rabbits natural burrowers?" Phoenix queried pointedly, looking at him with a side glance.

"Come on Nick, find your sense of adventure again," Judy chirped, nudging his arm lightly as she sauntered by. "I know you have one. We'll be fine; I'm sure the dragons can tell if something's going to give."

"How reassuring," the fox drawled, but he reluctantly followed the rabbit as she walked up next to Holly, and together they slowly entered the mouth of the cave.

Nara barely fit without shrinking down some, so Phoenix went first, and rapidly light from outside began to be lost. Nick, though, was expecting to be able to see for longer than Judy or Holly at least (he was sure Nara and Phoenix had night vision, but wasn't sure how strong), but as his eyes quickly adjusted he found himself shocked at just how far into the cave he could see.

 _Must be lighter in here than I thought,_ he decided, until Phoenix grumbled, "Ugh, already going to need light and we haven't even gone a hundred feet."

"You can't see?" he asked, to which the raptor shook her head.

"And I can see writing under the canopy of a starlit Berk forest," she replied. "If you can still see, your vision was probably strengthened by your gifting. I can barely make out the walls in here."

"Gifting?"

"Those marks you got when you first showed up on Berk; generally means you've been given one or more gifts, like how Snotlout's overly strong or Astrid is fast enough to deflect a bullet in battle."

"Or how I can't miss a target," Holly added, pulling a flashlight from the pack on Nara's side. "This will be bright, careful."

Nick closed his eyes and a moment later saw light appear beyond his lids. Slowly opening them again, he found the cave now decently illuminated within the light's beam, revealing quite clearly a patchwork of dripping stalactites and random puddles on the ground. The walls were slick with moisture, a classic active cave, but as they began to move along deeper into the cave (and Nick amusedly noticed Judy out of the corner of his eye trying to avoid the water falling from the ceiling, and only being marginally successful) other, clearly less geologic structures began to appear: shattered rubble that accumulated in piles on the cave floor, beneath almost perfectly rounded holes that snaked off of the main cave, large enough to stand up in and angling off in every direction.

Holly lifted her flashlight carefully up to point it above them, illuminating one such bore almost directly over their heads as they passed, and a chill ran through her as her mind mulled over the possibilities of the holes' presence, none of them reassuring. She'd seen them before too, though not often enough that she could immediately recall what they were.

"Were these made by the hunters?" Judy queried softly, stepping around a stalagmite to look into one of the tunnels with curious eyes. "Something to be mined from here? I'm not a geologist, but I'm fairly certain limestone generally doesn't have a lot of valuable minerals or gems."

She halted, as did everyone else, as a haunting sound of indiscernible source emanated faintly from further within the tunnel, where it branched off and curved into darkness. The noise was like the sound of groaning ice in a glacier combined with the soft sliding of canvas over a hard surface, an eerie whisper that none of them could quite define as earthly or animal.

"Now my fur's standing on end," Nick whispered, sniffing the air carefully as his tail puffed out in trepidation. "I smell something besides limestone; what was that noise?"

"If I knew I'd have told you," Holly replied in equally hushed tones, "but nothing good. I don't know what an imminent cave-in sounds like and there are a lot of dragons I've never met."

"Everyone stay here then; I'll go have a look," Phoenix said, creeping forward carefully. "I'm probably the fastest here, so if I yell, run." She stepped forward to the branching point of the tunnel, pausing to listen and scent the air, before she cautiously disappeared around the corner in the tunnel to the left.

As the raptor vanished, Nick looked to Holly, ears flattening back further than they'd already been. "Sooo…if it's a cave-in, what do we do?"

"Run and pray that we don't trip and skewer ourselves on a stalagmite in the process," Holly replied flatly, still staring at the tunnel branches.

Nick didn't like that answer, but knew she was right; not much else to do to avoid falling rocks in a cave. "And if it's a dragon?"

"Either it'll listen to a raptor speaking Dragonese, or you also pray and run."

"Great, just what I was hoping for when we woke up this morning: a dash through a dark, wet cave, trying to avoid imminent death."

Judy opened her mouth to snark back at him, before she was cut off by a pair of shrieks that echoed down the passageway, one deep, guttural, and angry, the other shocked and panicked. A second later Phoenix reappeared, a bright red-orange glow reflecting off the walls behind her.

"Get down!" she yelled, a second before the flames swept past her in a great billowing cloud, rushing straight for the rest of the group. Nara instinctively pulled Holly back and enveloped the teen in her wings, but she had no means by which to properly cover the Narnians from the attack. Barriers, too, would do nothing to stop the heat of the flames.

Nick was on the move before his mind even registered his actions, turning and tackling Judy to the ground before wrapping himself over her, tucking his head, limbs, and tail around her so that nothing on her would be exposed; his suit would protect most of him and his head was faced away from and tucked under the path of the blast, but the rest…he winced a moment too late, realizing that his tail would likely never be the same. The pulsing, concentric rings of fire blasted over the group, scorching the walls and lighting up the cave in a brilliant flare, and every one of the exposed members felt the searing power pounding behind them.

Then, about five seconds later, Nick noticed that he was not feeling anything burning on his exposed appendages. Certainly, he should have at least felt fur sizzling away and his skin starting to blister if not scorch off; at this distance, there was no way he was avoiding the fire. Instead, the pressure of the flames beating down on them was lessening, disappearing immediately around him even as the furnace noise of them roared by in deafening clamor.

Chancing a glance upward, the fox found flames still racing by in roiling rings of death, but as they approached him, each one fizzled out and died, leaving a clear space around him that was rapidly expanding. Soon enough, the empty shell had expanded to the roof of the cave, and the fire was no longer passing by any of them. Nara pushed her head up, releasing Holly, and the girl took immediate notice of the sudden new change. As the fire stopped up within the tunnel ahead of them, no longer pouring down toward them, she looked over at Nick.

"Are you doing that?" she asked the fox as he scrambled up off of Judy (having just realized as well what he'd done and not wanting to prolong the embarrassment of a full-body hug) and helped her up, and he gave a helpless shrug.

"If I am, it's not intentional! And it's never happened before!"

"Usually isn't the first time around!" Phoenix quipped, rushing up and pushing them along toward the cave exit. "And I'm betting you both have it for the effect to be pushing the flames back like that! But right now, we just need to move, explanations later!"

"We have what?" Judy asked anyway, even as they all began running and the flames stopped emanating from down the tunnel entirely. In their place, an angered hissing roar and the sound of shattering rocks echoed through the cave. "And what the _heck_ is back there?!"

"Whispering Death!" the raptor responded, "And they're not happy that we're here. I say they, because there's almost certainly more than one on this island with all these holes. And to your other question since I know you're not gonna let it go: you were marked, means you have likely one or more gifts as I mentioned earlier. Most are just"- she paused as she leapt around a stalagmite that separated them, before coming back to their side and continuing to run, "-most are just enhancements of what we already have, and the non-humans of our group nearly all have fire resistance –I know you do too Nick, but Hawken didn't want to tell you yet because of your 'humorous' personality- but it looks like you might have a diffusion or redirect aspect as well."

"Uh, meaning?" Nick prodded, slipping on the stone and trying to ignore the jab at his jokester habits as he scrambled to keep up.

"Meaning you might be able to neutralize attacks like that," Phoenix jerked her finger behind them. "It's only happened once now, so I can't say for sure, but that's usually how stuff like this has- look out!"

The raptor swerved to the side and grabbed the furry pair as the cave wall exploded, showering them in rocks as a second Whispering Death erupted from the earth after them, teeth whirring rapidly as it snapped and missed. Nara skidded toward it and whipped her tail around, sending one solitary spike its way, driving into a soft spot between scales and distracting it long enough for the five to recover and continue running.

"Well, that'll put a whole new spin on that 'firefox' thing, doesn't it?" Nick joked between panting breaths, earning a quick glare from the rabbit at his side and an incredulous snort from Holly.

"You had, what, three days at our house and you already managed to pick up on internet browser lingo?" she exclaimed.

"It's what came up, gotta use what I have!"

"Less talk, more run!" Nara snapped. "We don't need to end up buried in here! Move!"

Indeed, as they scrambled to avoid the cave adornments around them, they could hear rocks crumbling behind them as at least the two known angry serpentine reptiles prowled their way. Then a flash of dust and mud appeared at the opening of another Death tunnel ahead of them, just ahead of the snout of a third sliding out to block their way.

Without slowing down Holly reached down to her side and then flicked her wrist forward, sending a small dart flying. It connected with the Death's snout, sinking in and delivering the Speed Stinger venom that coated the tip. A half second later the dragon froze in place, permitting the group to scramble past (Holly retrieving her dart in the process) and continue on. Behind them, their other pursuers were slowed by their incapacitated comrade lying in their path, giving the pursued a precious few seconds more to get ahead of them.

Ten seconds later, faint sunlight appeared ahead, and as attention could be drawn more away from avoiding the stalagmites and other cave structures using only the shaky flashlight beam, Holly reached up and activated her com channel.

"Hiccup! We need help over here; there are Whispering Deaths behind us!"

"Damn it!" came the reply. "Were you in one of the caves?'

"Running out of it now!"

"Okay, try not to aggravate them more; we're coming!"

"No, we were just planning on turning around and playing jump-rope with them instead!" Nick bit off sarcastically, before they finally reached the cave's mouth again and stumbled out. "Can we fly out now?"

"No good," Nara said. "Carrying all four of you, even if Phoenix shrinks to minimum size, would slow me down a lot, and Whispering Deaths can fly at a pretty good clip too when they want to!"

That option out, they ran for the tree line, stumbling as the ground shook from the dragons behind them bursting from the cave mouth and into the softer ground below.

'We can't outrun them either, not all of us if any," Phoenix panted, looking at Holly, who scowled.

"Yeah, sorry for being the slowest one in the group!" she quipped. "How do we hold them off?"

She didn't get an answer to her question before they were showered with dirt, the first of the Deaths exploding out of the ground to their side. Nara roared as she flared her wings in front of the others, only receiving a piercing shriek back that made Nick and Judy both clap their paws over their ears.

::Intruders! Hunters!:: the Death yelled at the Nadder, lining up for a stream of fire before Nara could rebut the claim.

Seeing the flames imminent, and apparently deciding to test Phoenix's earlier claim, Judy darted past both Nick and Nara, ignoring the former's yell of fear for her, and planted herself in front of the Death, glaring the massive dragon down as rings of boiling flames erupted from its circular jaws. Knowing this would either go really well or end in disaster, Judy winced and braced herself in case she was wrong.

Just as had occurred in the cave with Nick however, the moment the first flames reached the rabbit they failed to leave a mark, and then began to roll back in a fizzling halo around her. Judy grinned at her luck, focusing directly on the fire instead of the dragon now and pushing her hands outward. To her ecstatic delight, the fire mimicked the action, folding backward and dying back further, allowing her to reach for her dart gun and get ready. A moment later Nick came up beside her with his own hands up, and the attack died back almost to its source.

Seeing its offense failing miserably, the Whispering death halted its flames altogether, eyes narrowing in bewilderment and suspicion. ::You stopped my fire,:: it hissed angrily at the two mammals, rows of teeth bared menacingly at the diminutive pair before it. A second later its other companion appeared, surrounding the group, before the two of them twisted and whipped their tails inward, sending a hail of spikes at the intruders.

Nick and Judy fell back instinctively at the incoming projectiles, but once again however the end result was not what the dragons sought. The group winced collectively, but went unharmed as the spikes bounced harmlessly off of their barriers, and as the pair of serpentine dragons fell back slightly at seeing their targets so perfectly untouched, both Nick and Judy pulled out their stun and tranquilizer weapons respectively as Holly prepared to brandish her throwing darts.

"Wait, Hiccup said not to aggravate them!" Phoenix said, holding up her hands to them.

"A little late for that I think!" Judy quipped back, looking at the two angry dragons.

"Yeah, they started it!" Nick agreed.

Phoenix gave them both a withering glare, pursing her lips, before she turned her attention to the Deaths, taking in a deep breath.

::Listen!:: she roared, catching the attention of the dragons. ::We don't want to fight!::

::You just killed our brother!:: one of the Deaths roared back even louder, jerking its head toward the cave with fury.

::He's not dead, just immobilized!:: Nara joined in, still shielding Holly. ::He'll wake up in a few hours, just fine. Please, we don't want to fight you!::

::Hunters lie, their slaves lie! Humans steal our eggs and kill our kin!:: the second Death growled. ::You look for something here clearly, as if you already know what is here! Thieves!::

::Not thieves!:: Phoenix insisted. ::Hunters stole our kin! We are trying to find him, not you!::

::Then why do you appear here of all places?::

::Because we thought this might be such an island that the hunters would try to hide away dragons on! Caves and holes to store their things, and for all we knew you were under their influence, to guard their stores!::

"I really wish I knew what they were saying," Nick muttered worriedly, eyes flickering between Phoenix and Nara and the two deaths as his ears stayed flat.

"Believe me, I know exactly how you feel," Holly agreed, guardedly gripping her darts still.

Nara glanced at them, overhearing them and quietly saying to their benefit, "They think we're the hunters, and they don't want to let us go because of it."

"So they intend to kill us?" Judy asked worriedly."

"More or less."

"Great; how do you want to die, impaled or torn to pieces by hundreds of rotating teeth?" Nick muttered darkly. "Painful, agonizing ends, party of five!"

"You're not helping!" Phoenix snapped back at him, her eyes not leaving the burrowers once as they shifted their stances.

Arguments however appeared to not be swaying the opinions of the Deaths enough, as both of them began coiling in preparation to strike.

"On my mark," Judy said to her partner, both of them tensing with their fingers on their triggers, and Nara and Phoenix began baring their teeth in equal warning. No one managed another move however before a new series of roars echoed from above, some of them familiar but one in particular definitely not belonging to any of their friends.

Heads whipped upward a moment before a beam of reflected sunlight blasted down at them, causing the Whispering Deaths to scream and cower from the blinding ray. Bright blue flames followed, cutting off the riders from the island's dragons, and an incredibly polished silver dragon landed amongst the fire, followed by Hiccup and the others with him. At their arrival, once they could see again, Nick and Judy both dared to take a slight sigh of relief, though they continued watching the new, unfamiliar giant in their midst with some trepidation.

::Stand off, friends!:: Sunrise implored, flaring her wide wings in front of the Whispering Deaths. ::Whiplash, Razor, leave these travelers be; they mean us no harm!::

::You trust humans to tell truth of peace after what they put us through?:: one of the Deaths hissed back. ::Their dragons are imprisoned in strange contraptions, they bear weapons on us! Redcrown sits in an unnatural sleep from a weapon that female there carries!:: It pointed its tail at Holly, making the teen grip her darts again.

::I do not trust humans, but I will trust dragons who act of their own accord, and gifteds who can speak our tongue,:: Sunrise bit back, nodding to Hiccup. ::Therefore I will lend an ear to what they have to say.::

A pause settled as the teeth of the Deaths slowed in their buzz saw motions, and they slowly turned to regard the Night Fury and his rider that slowly approached. ::A…human speaks Dragonese?:: the second Death queried uncertainly.

"Well, I can't speak it, but I can understand it," Hiccup responded softly, and firmly gaining their attention. "Sunrise told us what the hunters did here; they kidnapped one of our family as well to use against us. If the hunters were here we're at least moving in the right direction, but we didn't mean to disturb you. We're just trying to get our family back."

::My son,:: Toothless added, stepping forward. ::I am the Alpha of the Southern Archipelago, friends with Tohar of the ice nest in the north. I know that trust is earned, so please, let us have the opportunity to prove that we can be trusted. Sunrise told us that the hunters may have left some of their contraptions here when they were driven off, and that may help us find them. If we do, we may have a chance of finding your eggs too, or hatchlings if it's been that long.::

"This missing out on half the conversation thing hurts my head," Nick grumbled quietly, earning a snort from Astrid.

"Believe me, I know," she said. "When these guys or Hawken talk without cluing us in it's infuriating."

"Hold on a moment then," Hiccup groused, before returning to his contrite expression, cautiously holding out a hand to the Deaths. "Please, word of a marked guardian, trust that we're here as friends," he pleaded, pulling up the sleeve of his suit to reveal the coiled Night Fury on his arm.

A tense silence followed, no one daring to even breathe lest they upset the Deaths. Then, the wings of both of the slender dragons folded, and they slowly lowered themselves down to coil cautiously on the ground. ::If you can do one thing for us, then we will,:: the first said slowly. ::Wake our brother from the sleep the female human over there put him in.::

Hiccup let out an internal sigh of relief, before glancing at Holly. "Uh, Holly, which dart did you use on the dragon in the cave over there?"

"Speed Stinger, why?"

"Because I need to know which antidote to use," he replied, turning to Toothless and opening a flap on the dragon's saddle. After rummaging around for a minute, he pulled out a small, capped syringe and turned to hand it to Holly. "And since you tranq'ed him, you can wake him back up."

Holly let out a grimace, before swiping the syringe. "Sure, fine, put me in danger for defending myself!"

"No, it's an act of goodwill. They might help us get where we need to go if you do this. Besides, if the dragon is still hostile when he's de-paralyzed we're all here now."

"And we can keep you from getting burned," Judy reminded, drawing an odd look from Hiccup.

"Wait, who told you?" he asked.

The rabbit chuckled, before sighing in irritation. "Wow, everyone knows beside us, don't they? More like we found out through necessity, plus a little more: we can move fire, sort of. Why do you all know?"

"Hawken spotted Nick lay his elbow on top of a burner that had just been turned off back at home," Astrid said, "didn't have a chance to warn him, but he didn't react to the heat anyway which is kind of a good clue. He was worried you guys might get up to more mischief than we needed if you knew."

"Well, I promise that I will keep Nick from doing anything stupid with this knowledge," Judy assured.

The fox threw up his hands in exasperation at that statement. "Why all the suspicion?" he complained. "I'm a cop, remember? What would I even do with this anyway?" As his hands lowered though, a thoughtful expression appeared. "Well, okay, now that I think about it there are a few things…don't look at me like that! Just because I can doesn't mean that I will!"

"I think we'll keep a close eye on you anyway Slick," Holly remarked, earning a stink-eye from him as she approached the cave again with trepidation. As she did so, flanked by Nara and Embron, Hiccup sighed.

"Guess I might as well call in Fishlegs," he said, "let him and Jake know we might have a lead and keep them out of trouble."

Sunrise's eyes widened for a moment when she heard this, and looked to Hiccup. ::You have more friends on the island?:: At his slow, realizing nod, she turned to Whiplash and Razor. ::Digwell and Arya, where are they?:: she asked urgently.

A touch too late for the second time that day though, as at that moment Hiccup's com came alive, blasting out a high-pitched cry.

"Hiccup! Help! Aaahhh!"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"

* * *

It took an hour before everyone finally managed to end up back together, standing with the local residents (or at least three of them) in an uneasy truce in front of an old, broken down doorway that clearly had once been hastily placed in front of a yawning cavern mouth. The wood and metal had long since begun rotting and corroding away, battered open by the elements (and perhaps an angry reptile or two), but crumbling rocks had fallen down around the base thus ensuring that it had never fully permitted the outside world entry.

Not that that had hindered the Whispering Deaths of the island all that much, burrowing as they were. With their help the others pried open the remains of the door (or "took the pathetic thing out of its misery" as Jake had remarked when the rust and rotted wood fell apart moments after it left the rock wall) to peer inside.

Their first reaction was pure disgust.

"Oh God!" Judy exclaimed, eyes fixed on the nearest sight to the door. "They tried to get out after being locked in, didn't they?"

"Dragon fire's a better way to go than starvin' on an island while you try t' hide from them," Jake muttered in reply, his own fiery orbits looking at the scorch marks littering the rocks near the pair of equally carbonized skeletons splayed across the stony ground. "These were probably the two that alerted the dragons here, and made the other hunters have te leave. They were left as a death sentence."

"So much for loyalty among the ranks, eh?" Nick quipped, being the first to gingerly step past the remains in a bit of a break of character. The sooner they saw what was inside though, he reasoned, the sooner that they could leave.

"Men are loyal to Viggo because they're afraid of him," Astrid huffed. "And he's able to pull through on his threats too, otherwise it would be too unstable a rule on his part and we wouldn't be out here running on fumes like we are."

"Plus he's got money to attract them," Fishlegs offered sullenly.

Astrid nodded in grim agreement, before shaking her head. "Alright, let's pray we find something useful in here."

Flashlights flicked on, and those with nocturnal vision pressed forward first, investigating around the cavern. As they gathered in the center and then spread out, they saw evidence of the claims the local dragons had given: things had definitely been stored here, but the crates and equipment within had been crushed, ripped apart, and strewn over the rocks, that which hadn't been incinerated outright. Quicksilver bent down to gingerly pick up what looked like a mangled crossbow, only instead of a channel to lay an arrow in there was a tube. No sign of what was supposed to be loaded within could be found however.

"They really did trash this place, didn't they?" he muttered.

"And it happened just long enough ago that whatever was in these isn't traceable anymore," Nick agreed, looking down at a series of shattered glass vials, spilling out of a rotting box. "I can't smell even a pinch of what was inside. The humidity in this place must be one of the reasons, right? I can feel my fur getting sticky just standing here."

"Unfortunately, yes," Hiccup sighed, sweeping his flashlight across the cavern. There were larger items present too, twisted remains of cages, restraints, and (to Nick's shivering chagrin) dragon-sized muzzles, now broken completely beyond use luckily.

"If it was bad enough that they sentenced two of their own to death when they were driven out, this had to be important," Fishlegs mused, face downcast but his hands still fervently writing and sketching in his pocket book to put what he was seeing together as best he could. "Urgh, but we don't have what we need to know if this was anything that much more than their usual trapping and selling! All this we would probably be able to find in any of their other outposts too." He sighed and leaned against the wall. "This is going to be another dead end, isn't it?"

"You sure this is a dead end?" Holly asked, hoisting up another of the broken contraptions. This one looked more like one of their dart guns than it did a crossbow or other classic weapon of that world, though it was still quite clearly more primitively made than their modern versions. The same sized tube traveled from the handle and trigger as there was on the modified crossbow though, but instead of an actual pull trigger there was an empty space that looked like it was meant to house a pressure-activated mechanism.

'I don't know about you guys," Holly continued, holding it out with skepticism, "but this is definitely not their usual set of weaponry. Looks like they were after something specific; the Phantoms perhaps?"

The group gathered around the weapon, no one noticing as Nick's tail brushed away a layer of dust near the cavern wall as he walked over to join them, uncovering a small, shattered lavender gemstone almost pressed into the earth.

Hiccup took the broken weapon, looking it over carefully. "It's like a rudimentary air pistol," he muttered, "like our tranq guns, only I don't see what it fires with." He carefully cracked open the handle, revealing another empty space with a small tube leading straight into the tubular barrel. "Maybe Viggo knows someone who's learned how to get compressed air canisters made; it would certainly permit firing a much longer distance than most of their handheld weapons.

"Or heavier ammo," Fishlegs added. "It would make sense if they were going after a Phantom or one of the Deaths; you'd want something that could hit high, or hit hard with them. But it's not enough to draw anything really helpful from for us, other than to keep an eye out for more complicated weapons if we do narrow down a location."

"Then we just keep looking," Judy stated firmly, turning and heading for the cave entrance. "It's just one more snag, no reason to feel defeated yet."

"Don't you start singing," Nick warned as he followed after her along with everyone else. Judy only smirked and looked over her shoulder.

"Oh oh oh oh oooohhh!"

"Carrots!"

The pointedly off-tune song would have continued, but a roar cut them off as they stepped outside, not from any of the dragons on the ground either, and every head snapped toward the forest. The eyes of Sunrise and the present Deaths all widened in particular at the sound, and not in a reassuring manner.

::Oh, stars above, Weavers' come back!::

"Wait, who's Weaver?" Hiccup asked worriedly, not liking their tone, and he received a look from the Phantom of equal parts fear and sorrow.

::She was among those driven mad when the hunters attacked,:: the Phantom said, her back starting to arch defensively. ::She listens to no reason now!::

"Oh no; everyone, get your barriers on now!"

They managed to do so in the nick of time, as only moments later a hail of spikes rocketed out of the trees, bouncing off the fields of the riders but here and there finding their marks on Sunrise and the other Deaths. Sunrise shrieked from the sudden pain and stumbled back just as the rogue Whispering Death burst out of the brush and turned to tangle with Razor instead.

Hiccup ran to Sunrise and whistled to get her attention as she thrashed her wings, trying to dislodge the spike in her side. "Hey, hey, Sunrise hold on!" he called. "I can get it out, let me help!"

The dragon looked at him warily, but calmed enough to allow him to reach up and pull out the long spine. Then he yelled over his shoulder, "Holly, Judy! One of you, tranq the rogue already!"

"They're thrashing too much!" Holly yelled back, her eyes flickering as she tried to follow the pair of serpentine dragons that rolled in a furious ball across the clearing, biting and whipping at each other as the other dragons tried and failed to get in between and pull the feral off. "I can't get a bead on them! Everyone else, back off!"

They watched helplessly as gashes appeared on both reptiles, the feral holding back nothing as she constricted her body around Razor's wings and neck, the spines at the tip of her tail digging deep into his sides. With a great twist of her neck the feral turned and dug her rotating teeth into her opponent's cheek, tearing open another series of gashes and punctures before leaning back to fire.

Ignoring the pain, Razor took the moment of change and rolled violently in the opening given and swung his head, connecting hard with Weaver's chest and driving them both against a nearby rock. The whole clearing cringed at the sudden crack that echoed from the impact, and the feral Weaver gave a strangled cry of agony before falling limply to the ground, leaving Razor to slink away from her, bleeding profusely but not in mortal threat.

Weaver weakly batted a wing, and twisted her neck in pain, but her lower body did not respond at all to her attempts to rise.

"Oh no," Hiccup whispered, immediately fearing the worst, before leaping into action. "Fishlegs, you and Astrid treat Razor as best as you can; bandage the injuries that need it. Holly, Judy, stand by if we still need to tranq Weaver, Phoenix you help me figure out what happened to her just now. I think I know, but I hope I'm wrong."

They all moved to their ordered positions, Nick following along with Hiccup and Phoenix as the dragons watched on warily. Hiccup knelt down behind Weaver's line of vision and carefully looked over her, ignoring the obvious scratches and gashes as he tried to locate an answer to her sudden lack of movement. He found it only a moment later, and a hole dug into his chest with the realization that came with the confirmation of his worries.

"Guys, it's…her backbone's broken, in several places," he said quietly. "It's cracked enough it probably severed the cord."

"It did," Phoenix said, pointing to a severe break, a shard of bone jutting between scales.

Several gasps escaped the others, and even Astrid looked away for a moment from her task cleaning out a gash on the other Death's neck to lock eyes with Hiccup.

::W-what does that mean?:: Sunrise pressed worriedly, her eyes flicking rapidly between Hiccup and the fallen dragon. His look back at her made her wings fall even before his words confirmed it.

"It means…it means that, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for her here," he said softly, looking at the injured dragon's blank whitish eyes. "We can't take her anywhere without worsening the problem or causing her to die from internal injuries, and she will never heal from this properly without a miracle that we don't have at hand."

"So t-there's nothing at all we can do?" Judy asked, ears falling, and she deflated fully at Hiccup's shake of his head. "Then…what do we do? Hiccup, we can't leave her like this, can we?"

Nick's paw on her shoulder and the silence that followed answered her question; even the wild dragons bowed their heads in understanding. She took in a shocked gasp, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Oh," she whispered. "I…is that…that can't be the only option!"

"It's better than letting her suffer in agony and starvation until she dies," Toothless answered, his eyes also still locked on the Death. "We can't fix the madness, we can't set a broken back, not like this." He closed his eyes in a falling breath, before looking up toward the rattlesnake among them. "Jake, will you…I mean, you have the fastest means of…"

"I know," Jake said with a curt nod, his flat tone belying his own displeasure with the situation. He uncoiled and slithered over toward the downed dragon. "If ye want, the others can leave the clearing before I do this. It won't be pretty."

"Come on then," Astrid encouraged, holding out her hand to the Narnians, Holly, and the rest. "It's better we leave them alone for this."

Sunrise chose to remain, alongside Whiplash and Razor, as Weaver had been their former island mate and they believed it was partly their responsibility to watch her in this, partly their fault that it had come about even despite the consolations of the Riders. The rest, however, withdrew to a clearing further out in the forest.

"This is exactly what Viggo's hoping for, isn't it?" Judy asked softly. "Find ways to turn friends and family against each other so that we destroy each other."

"It had to be him too," Quicksilver agreed. "How that dragon acted, it was the same as the Windstriker on Drekki, and that's too much coincidence. We need to know how he's managing it, and I'll bet those crates had something to do with it, because if this continues then he'll have no problem turning the rest of the world against"-

A gunshot ripped its way through the forest, echoing off the trees and rocks and causing Judy to let out a pained yelp at knowing what it meant. She turned to bury her face in Nick's side, the fox understandingly placing an arm around her. Similarly, Holly unconsciously leaned into Astrid, the two girls sharing a moment as the shuddering feeling passed by as well. To kill in self-defense while fighting was one thing, but to take what should have been an innocent life because they had no other choice, because someone else's actions forced their hand…

"This is a lot bigger than rescuing one dragon now," Nick said quietly, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice just enough for Judy to pick up on it. He turned to Phoenix, then to Embron, Quicksilver, and the two young women. "There's no way we can leave this after we get Tsefan. If Viggo has his way it won't just be you guys or dragons that he'll take over."

"We know," Astrid returned quietly, but a growl in her voice reflecting her opinion on the lead hunter was present. "We know Nick. That's why he took Tsefan, because we were among the few who might have had the opportunity to stand against him, turn his operation over. He's been planning things for years in order to try and throw it all in our faces."

"We have to destroy everything."

Surprised gazes from everyone turned on Judy, who gave one last sniff as she stepped back away from Nick, her eyes growing determined and practically glowing violet as a paw rested on her tranquilizer gun.

"This isn't business he's making," she continued. "It's murder, and he's putting everyone, even his own people, in danger for it. That's _inexcusable._ " She looked up at Nick. "I think I know why Aslan wanted us out here; there are bigger problems to be fixed than just small-time offenses in Narnia, and we can't just be sitting there while everything else rolls by out here. I don't know about you, but…but I can't leave until this is dealt with entirely."

"No, Judy, for once I agree with you wholeheartedly," Nick said, nodding as his eyes turned to Hiccup, Toothless, Jake, and the local dragons as they appeared through the trees, each of them looking haggard and downcast, even the normally stoic rattlesnake. "You only beat me saying it myself by a few seconds."

Hiccup gave a long-suffering sigh, walking over and giving Astrid a hug to clear his mind, before he looked back to everyone else. "Alright people," he began, "there's nothing else for us to find here. Best bet is northeast of here; islands get denser that way and Viggo or his outposts are most likely hiding there, closer to the trade route access. We'll stay the night here with permission from the residents, and then get moving again in the morning. Until then, I think we'll all understand if anyone needs to let out their frustrations, but…just don't hurt yourself."

"Don't worry," Holly said darkly, "I'm saving that for the next group of hunters we find. Even if I have to cut through a rock wall to make sure of it, someone is going to get back what we had to give that dragon for all they've done."

* * *

 **A/N- A look a bit into how Viggo's actions are impacting even the most isolated of little families...**

 **Anyway, I know it was probably a little bit roundabout, but what did you think? Let me know in your reviews! Also, for those interested, a while back I made a sketch of one particular scene in this story, which can be found here (remove the spaces etc. since FF doesn't actually allow links):** **https: (double slash) .com (slash) photos (slash) 127653455 N03 (slash) 35690673291 (slash) in (slash) album-72157674260547772 (slash)**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	19. Chapter 18: Dryland

Chapter 18

Dryland

/

 _The desert is unforgiving_

 _A scorching land of dying dreams_

 _Sand and sun reach to all horizons_

 _And mirages pull at reality's seams_

 _There is beauty in this desolate land_

 _For the eye that can see it there_

 _Though these souls are far between_

 _And the world hardly gives them care_

 _For the rest this is a fortress forbidden_

 _The realm of mysteries and tricks_

 _If you wish to find anything you seek_

 _Better take caution of the fruit you pick_

 _-0-_

"Sooo, just to clarify, you're saying that you _don't_ see the penguins?"

"For the last time Tuff, there are no penguins living in the Sahara!"

"Oh come on, you're all blind then! They're right…oh, wait, that's a rock. Weird, they were waving a minute ago. Looked so happy. Heh heh, happy penguins…"

Loki sighed and shifted uncomfortably on the saddle where he sat behind Ingavar. It was bad enough that they were only about halfway to their destination, and that said destination was smack in the middle of one of the hottest, and certainly largest, deserts on the planet (and the wind rushing by did more to blister and dehydrate than cool them off, dry and heated as it was), but now the trip was additionally compounded by Tuffnut's delirious ramblings. At least it was obvious he wasn't the only one suffering from listening to the Viking.

They had thought that they'd brought enough water and shading materials to keep everyone going until they at least reached the next oasis stopover (which, according to the merchants, was a little more than halfway down the path to the distant outpost), however the gangly blond Viking had quite clearly not only run through all his water very early on, but was now addled enough that his already questionable state of mind was well and truly dropping off the deep end of the nut lagoon.

"Eret, you have the map still, correct?" Loki called out, willfully ignoring the disturbing facial expressions Tuff was making in the wind (the likes of which could only be trumped by the shiver-inducing looks Hawken's sister would make on purpose). When the trader nodded and pulled it out, he continued, "How far are we from the next stop?"

"It should be visible on the horizon soon," Eret called back. "Look for palm trees and green, and there should be permanent water when we get there from the spring."

"We'll resupply there and find shade then, and head back out come nightfall," Ingavar announced. "Not bakin' in the sun any longer should help us move faster."

"Ugh, yes, let's fly at night," Kingsley quipped from where he was wrapped around Twintail's neck. "I might carry dragon blood but this sun is starting to roast me like a rotisserie chicken."

"We're all in the same predicament, Kingsley," Stormfly grumbled back. "You're just lucky you can ignore an empty stomach for longer than we can. I hope there's fish or something we can catch where we're going."

"Yeah, fish!" Tuff laughed from her back again, causing the Mood Dragon's scales to deepen from an already stressed cranberry to crimson. "Hey, we got mead somewhere still? I wanna make daiquiri seafood."

"Make what now?" Cami trilled to her husband, for once unable to translate this latest nonsense.

Tuff grinned an oozingly dorky smile. "Daquiri seafood. You know, drunken fish."

"Drunken fish."

"Make 'em swim around all funny, run into stuff before we eat them. Dumb fish taste better."

"I'm going to hazard a guess that we need to find water as soon as possible," Attonius chimed in wearily, watching the gangly Viking with a perplexed stare. "He doesn't sound like he'll last much longer."

Cami glanced at the minister, then back behind her at Tuff, before letting out a sigh. "Honestly, I'm not sure this time if it is the dehydration talking or just another of his usual ramblings."

"Ah. In that case, anyone have a gag to muffle him with?"

"Tempting, but I"-

She was cut off when Tuff suddenly heaved behind her, retching off to his (and, luckily, Stormfly's) side. Cami's eyes widened and she turned around fully in worry. "Tuff! Tuff, you okay?" she cried, reaching over to feel his forehead.

Tuff gave a grin before his eyes fluttered. "Sure honey, just a –eeeeccchhhh!"

With another dry heave he convinced his wife otherwise, and she turned to force him to lay down across Stormfly's back, shading him with herself as best she could.

"Whoa, whoa, just lay down Tuff," she urged softly. "Don't talk, that will just make it worse. Just lay down and rest." Turning her head, she shouted, "Anyone have extra water still, or are we all out now?"

"Running low all around I'm afraid," Attonius replied. "Be we should hopefully"-

"I see it!" Shadow suddenly bellowed, straining his head forward with eyes wide in hope. "I see treetops above the dunes ahead!" He pointed ahead of them, drawing all free eyes to the horizon. At first, nothing could be seen by the rest except more sand and blank sky, but as they continued to draw closer, one by one they each began to spot fronds rising from the orange landscape. A collective set of relieved sighs escaped the weary party, and dragon wings beat harder as they pushed themselves to reach the sanctuary ahead.

The oasis was framed in a rocky semi-canyon, sloping walls of stone helping to prevent the spring from being overtaken by the relentless shifting of the desert dunes around it. Grasses, fruiting shrubs, and both palm and hardwood trees sprouted from the softer earth, stabilizing the sand around the shores of the shimmering blue pool that filled from deep below.

The riders and friends landed in a graceless stumble at the edges of the spring and rushed for the pond, Stormfly carrying Tuffnut carefully to the water's edge and kneeling down to permit Camicazi to pull him off of the dragon's back and lay him across the ground. Then Cami turned and grabbed one of her canteens, opening it before submerging the whole thing in the shockingly cool water.

"Alright Tuff, come on and get a drink," she encouraged, pulling the full canteen out and tilting the mouth carefully over Tuff's face. He had passed out, and the first splash brought him spluttering back to the world of the wakened before he scrambled to grab the canteen.

Cami pulled back, holding the canteen away. "No, no, Tuff you've got to take it slow or you'll just be sick, okay?" she said sternly, waiting for him to calm. Slowly he did, but not without complaint of course.

"But…water!"

"Yes, water, but if you just throw up again it won't be any good for anyone, especially you. Take it slowly, little sips."

She lowered the canteen to him again as he sat up slowly, and let him drink bit by bit, until Tuff finally sat back with a sigh.

"Alright, alright, I'm good," he said. "Ugh, I promise I won't guzzle it all in the first go next time. My head hurts too much for that now." Then he looked around, taking notice of their surroundings for the first time. "Whoa! We're still in the desert? This place looks awesome!"

The dragons already had their heads submerged as they drank their fill from the pool, Feren a bit more composed as were the raptors as they lapped from the pool's edge. Kingsley had taken a different approach entirely, having submerged himself entirely on a ledge just offshore, soaking up the water and cooling off his long body. The human portion of the gang were busy filling all of their canteens and water bags with as much as they could hold, and Ingavar, once he was done, took to looking around the oasis at the plants growing nearby and then to the rocky outcrops that jutted out on the far side, producing shaded ground. Wiping the salty sweat off his brow, he turned to the others.

"We may be able te find date palms and berry bushes here," he said, "so look around to stock up fer the other leg of the trip. We should have someone stand watch while the rest of us get some shut-eye until evening arrives."

"I'll take the first watch then," Eret spoke up, closing the top of his last canteen and looking to Spitfire. "You get some rest when you're done there, Spitfire, don't need both of us tiring out. And…uh, make sure Kingsley doesn't drown himself down there, will you?"

The Changewing snorted and pulled out his snout to avoid choking on the water running into it as he snickered, and a moment later the mentioned cobra's head popped out of the water.

"You know I can hold my breath for over half an hour, right?" he chuckled, before disappearing again. Eret only shook his head in bemusement, before heading for the high rocks to watch the area.

Ten minutes later activity had ceased among them (save for an occasional bathroom run from someone who'd drank a bit too much) and nearly everyone was hidden under the rock outcrops after a pointedly thorough search for scorpions or, in the raptors' cases, beneath the spreading leaves of several low ferns and palms after a similar search. Canteens were full, packs were restocked with what food they could find that they could fit for travel, and Eret stood in the shade of the highest ledge where he had the best view of the surrounding landscape. For the most part he doubted he'd see anything though; Amuun had suggested that the next scheduled caravan to pass down this way wasn't due for a few more weeks, but word of their presence in the area would be almost certain to spread and that could trigger an impromptu trip by the hunters if there was anything to be found where they were headed.

If that happened, the half-present path (far more exposed to the Sahara's relentless winds and the march of its dunes) was clear to the Sami for some distance in both directions from his vantage point, as were the dunes of the western desert out straight ahead of him over top of the rocks on the far side of the grotto. The view to the east was blocked of course, being he stood under an overhang in the side of the slope, but it would take quite a bit of effort for anything to clamber around the side like he did, so he was sure of more than enough warning for anything approaching.

That surety led to Eret slipping into a pensive, stewing state, alertness slipping some as thoughts took over. He was the closest of any of them to Viggo, though of course he hadn't been anywhere near to being privy to everything the lead hunter had been up to. After all, he'd never known Viggo knew how to source ammonia to throw of tracking dragons, or in this case Hawken back on Berk when Tsefan had disappeared. He didn't know how the hunters were suddenly able to communicate so rapidly over such massive distances either; even if they had dragons to their aid (and he knew some of them did) it still took many days to travel by air or sea as far as they'd come.

That bore to wonder, what other secrets was Viggo still harboring? What was it that he was planning, that he'd even been so bold as to risk everything to capture one of the Night Furies for anyway? Was it the savage dragon issue they still lacked answers for? If so, what was he using to cause it, and how far did his reach extend in that influence? There were too many questions still with too few answers, and until they found the hunters' storage base and then found a way to snoop out the place or interrogate someone there for solutions to the problems at hand, it was touch and go and they only had strings to bat at.

Eret glanced at the dragons snoozing below him, particularly Spitfire against the rocks and fast asleep (and he felt sorry for the reptiles, having been flying for so long in the blistering heat which was still rising up off the sand and stone even into the shade), and then turned to fidget with his knife and cautionary pack of tranquilizer darts. The weapons hadn't been used by him on the trip yet, but in this harsh land he was concerned there would eventually be a need. Never mind the hunters or those interested in cashing in on the bounty they'd placed on the Riders; he knew that the nomads of the desert were also a force not to be trifled with, and the dragons that lived here even less so. He'd only ever managed to glimpse a Desert Wraith in its element before they met Melania, never mind had the gall to try capturing one, and there were far more elusive, hazardous dragons out here. Triple Strykes were desert specialists, and the trader gave a shiver that had nothing to do with the soft, rustling wind that passed upon imagining if they ran into more than one at a time. With their own trio of specialized venoms to deal with, Strykes were often resistant or immune to many other toxins that a person might have on hand to defend themselves with.

It took all of five seconds for Eret to realize the soft noise behind him was not just the wind. He turned and pulled out his knife just a second too slow, and the Viperwyrm struck, coiling around him like a hyperactive spring and pinning his arms to his sides. His knife dropped from his hand in the sudden attack, and he turned his head to yell out before the serpentine dragon clamped its tail over his mouth, muffling the sound. Eret struggled in vain, knowing at this point the barrier he wore was useless, as he caught a glimpse of a clearly artificial spike glued in place to the tip of the dragon's tail. Before he could question its use, the Viperwyrm twisted its tail and drove the tip of the spike painfully into his neck.

Eret received his answer of the purpose only a moment later as the world around him lost color and faded to black.

The Viperwyrm let its target slump to the ground as it uncoiled, before nosing him over and removing the pack of darts on the trader's side, dropping them unceremoniously next to the knife. Then, it poked its head out past the ledge for a moment to ensure that its presence had not alerted the others in the group below, before picking up Eret by his arms in its coils and quietly leaving the rocky ledge, dragging its quarry off into the shifting sands to the east.

* * *

Delta was the first to realize something was wrong when Eret failed to wake her for the next watch. Her eyes snapped open, and then her head bolted upright when she registered the fiery colors of an imminent sunset in the sky above them. She was supposed to have been awakened a couple of hours before, at least.

"Oh no," she said softly, before leaping to her feet. "Everybody up!" she yelled. "We've got a problem!"

Eyes flickered open around her as the other raptors and Feren came awake at a moment's notice, the people, dragons, and Kingsley a little slower on the uptake though. "Delta? What happened?" Feren asked, though slightly too late as Delta had already headed off toward the rocks, scaling them with ease.

"Eret didn't wake me to change shifts," she called back, "which should have occurred hours ago! The sun's already setting!" Reaching the ledge designated as the outpost, she vaulted herself up, and then froze. "Problem just got bigger too."

::What is it?:: Spitfire asked urgently, shaking the last of his sleep (and some wayward sand) off as he clambered up toward her. ::Is he okay?::

Delta answered by holding up the dropped knife and dart pack that lay abandoned on the ledge. "He's not here," she said. "Someone, or something, was here and took him; they know what they were doing too, 'cause they left his weapons here. Kingsley!"

"Already coming!" the cobra called, sliding up the face of the rock and popping over the ledge, tongue flickering wildly as he searched the space trying to identify the culprit and what had occurred.

Below, everyone else had moved into a flurry of activity. "Alright, nap time is officially over!" Cami declared. "Everybody pack up what isn't already secured and we'll follow Kingsley as soon as he picks up a trail. Attonius, ride with Talon and Kingsley when he's ready on Spitfire; Twintail, carry Delta, Shadow, and Feren. Keep your weapons at the ready!"

"Got a scent!" Kingsley announced only a second later, and he wasn't happy. "He was taken off alive, but a Viperwyrm was here! I'm not smelling any people, just the dragon. I can follow the trail if we move now but the sand will cover it before long!"

"Then let's go!" Attonius responded first, mounting Spitfire's saddle as the Changewing came back down to pick him up with Talon, and they took off, sweeping up to the ledge to pick up the cobra before following the snake's directing out into the desert, the others following in a single-file line behind them.

* * *

Eret's head hurt, and he was sure it was from more than just dehydration. As he came to, it was rapidly made clear that he was not being dragged around anymore by a snake-like dragon, nor still under the rock outcrop where he was supposed to be. His sense of touch registered his hands bound around behind some sort of thick pole, and he sat slouched forward upon the sand. Faint noises of various form emanated from all around him, and as he finally managed to peel open his eyes their first vision was the flickering of a small, crackling fire a short distance away. The sun was still just barely above the horizon, but it was growing darker, cloaking the nomadic tents that surrounded him and the men and women dressed in similarly colored garb in lengthening shadows.

Realization began to set in then, and Eret froze, not wanting to alert his captors that he was awake yet. That he was tied up instead of buried in the sand or inside a dragon's stomach confirmed the notion that he'd first developed upon seeing the spike on the Viperwyrm's tail: these people worked with dragons in some manner and didn't want him dead just yet, but had yet targeted his companions, or at least him, for a reason.

 _All the better; now I get to figure out if they intend to turn me into a slave, think I'm hunting my friends, or are going to use me as bait for them,_ he mulled in his head. _Or, if I can get out of these blasted ropes maybe I have a chance to run._ Slowly taking stock of what he had on him, he realized rapidly that getting away was not going to be an easy option either. He'd dropped his knife at the oasis, and now the dart pack was gone too. Perhaps worse though, his com set was missing and the hidden blades he'd had were gone too. They at least were not capable of removing the barrier gem, and it was still on, but even if he somehow wriggled out of his bindings he had nothing but his fists to fight with.

 _I need to find a weapon,_ he decided, chancing on a careful glance up out of the corner of his eye to look around the camp. _They've all got their arms on them,_ he deflated. _Maybe if there's something in the nearest tent I have a chance, should they move out of line of sight to me, but otherwise that's out an option too. Ugh, can't even tell which way I need to-_

HISSSROOOAAAARRR!

Eret jerked upward and back in surprise more than fear, regretting the move a moment later as his head collided hard with the pole he was securely fastened to, adding exponentially to his headache. He grunted quietly, before fixing an unamused stare on the beaklike snout and beady eyes of the Triple Stryke that had dropped down from the sky in front of him.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" he deadpanned. "I'm already bad enough off without giving myself a concussion, don't you think?"

The Stryke's snarl fell, and it blinked, surprised, as if not expecting such a nonchalant response from this captive. What kind of person didn't show fear at the snarl of a dragon that could both breathe fire and sting in three different ways?

Almost guessing the question through the dragon's expression, Eret chuckled and drawled, "Yeah, I'm friends with some folks that are a lot more frightening than you, dragon."

Now the surprise turned again into a glare, but the triple Stryke didn't quite devolve all the way back to a snarl. Moments later, its head perked up, and it stepped off to the side to make way for a new figure.

"And he awakens," the enrobed man said, kneeling down in front of Eret to look him in the eyes. Marked by heavily sun-darkened skin, brown eyes looking out from underneath a carefully wrapped turban, his gaze scrutinized the trader with veiled displeasure as he spoke with a rich Moroccan accent. "A long time it has been since the last of your ilk passed by, but never so bold were they that they dragged their dragons out in the open. Tell me, what is your intention for this time around? Sell them as bush meat to the south? Enslave them to run your blasphemous business? Kill them for harvest like the last Mood Dragons you brought through here to the western ports?"

A long, skillfully crafted steel blade appeared from by his side, the handle he gripped in his hand carved of fine ivory. "Choose your answer carefully hunter," the man warned. "It will determine the manner of your death."

Eret blinked for a moment as he regarded both the cuirass and its wielder as well as the man's words, before he closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "Figures I'm the one that you take to be one of those twisted characters," he grumbled. "But the rest? I'm disappointed."

The Tuareg paused in response, before his glare, and that of the triple Stryke still at his side, darkened considerably. "I beg your pardon?" he growled.

Eret turned his head up and locked eyes with him. "I'll lay it out flat for you," he drawled back. "I. Am. NOT. A. Hunter. I'm a Rider like the rest of my group back there, and we're here going after the hunters because they took one of our dragons, and are causing chaos in the Mediterranean that we need to end. Yeah, once upon a time I worked for them, but that was oh so long ago and nowhere near as safe, profitable, or entertaining even as working with the dragons they hunt. Also, I really suggest you hide that cuirass of yours before my friends show up, which they will. Never mind you're threatening me with it, they'll expect that, but I know several of them that will be very, very displeased with you holding an ivory handle."

The man looked at him oddly, trying to decide which piece of his rant he should consider first, before looking down at his sword. "And why would they care?"

"Because the animals ivory comes from are kind of rare, borderline sentient like some dragons, and usually end up dead to get the ivory. The guys I hang out with aren't fans of that kind of sport any more than they are what the dragon hunters do."

The Tuareg scowled. "Do you take me for a fool?" he quipped.

"Depends on whether or not you listen to me," Eret countered. "I'm sure the hunters are normally the only ones to take that route, which is why we were turned to it rather than just hopping along the coast hoping to get lucky and happen on them, so I can't really blame you for the mistaking of us for them in some part, but really, all the rest of the evidence should speak for itself. We don't enslave dragons or sell them, we free them and"-

"Then explain to me the contraptions you have on them to control them," the man interrupted, pulling out a spyglass and holding it up in front of Eret. "I saw they ropes and harnesses they were strapped in; they are not free!"

Eret groaned. "Oh, for the love of…are Vikings the _only_ people who use saddles in this world? Hey, why don't you ask the ones you're so concerned about if it's true before jumping to conclusions then?"

"Ask the dragons? Are you addled in mind as well?"

"I really want to inquire the same of you. Yes, ask the dragons. Maybe the Triple Stryke you seem to pal around with there can't speak but I'm sure he can nod his head, and you have to have noticed they understand you. There're two options here really: we can argue until the sun comes back up again, or you can take some initiative to test my words, since I can't very well do so while tied to a stake here."

The man sat silent for a moment, glancing inquisitively at the nearby dragon, before his eyes hardened and he stood up straight again, yelling out, "Alkashafata! Alqabd ealaa almusafirin alakharin! (Scouts! Capture the other travelers!)"

It was not a language Eret was familiar with, but he still managed to gather the gist when others in the camp stood up and tightened the belts around their outfits: they were going to go find his companions, and not in a friendly manner. His interrogator turned to him again with the frown still in place.

"If we find another of your friends, would they be able to spin the same tale to us as you have, or will you be caught in a lie?" he asked slowly. "You'd not be the first to try and give us some fantastic excuse to save your skin, and if it's the latter, proving you out a hunter will not bode well for you."

Eret opened his mouth to reply, before movement caught the corner of his vision; it wasn't a dragon either, or humans. He closed his mouth, settling it into a pitying smirk instead for a moment. "Well, doesn't matter much at this point," he answered flippantly. "You won't have to find them, see; they've already found you."

The nomad's eyes flicked wide, as did those of the Triple Stryke, only a moment before a long, weaving black and cream blur flashed by, striking them in the process so that they both stumbled back from the sudden pain in their ankles. Only a second later the blur rippled behind Eret, slowing just long enough to be recognized as a reptile as it shredded the ropes with the sharp end of its armored tail before racing back toward Eret's interrogator as the man attempted to regain hold of his sword.

Kingsley slammed his body into the nomad, wrapping around him and rendering his grip on the blade useless while at the same time ensuring that the Triple Stryke, now recovered from the shock of his dry bite, could not sting him back.

"Call off your men!" the snake ordered, hood flaring as he moved to look the man in the eyes. When the other dragons and tribespeople nearby continued to advance and his captive did nothing, Kingsley turned his head and yelled out, 'Loki! Cami! Your turn!"

Another blur appeared beside Eret, blonde hair streaking out from under her helmet, and a second wavering figure materialized to reveal the darker cloaked Loki, the two of them whipping out swords of their own as they guarded their still defenseless ally.

"Might want this back!" Cami quipped, tossing Eret's knife to him before she darted forward, rapidly disarming one of the now charging nomads and sending him rolling across the ground. Loki simultaneously thrust his hands outward, and around the encampment several copies of himself flickered into existence, matching swords also in their hands. It was enough to at least slow the advance of their opposition, though the same Viperwyrm that had dragged Eret to their camp went after one of the doppelgangers, forcing that Loki to swerve out of the way and smack the dragon upside the head in defense, dropping it long enough to move away.

A second Viperwyrm focused on Kingsley, and the cobra, knowing the other reptile could get in to him easier than the Triple Stryke could, abandoned his captive to tie in with the other legless creature. Serpentine bodies rolled and twisted across the sand for a moment before the Viperwyrm suddenly froze up, paralyzed by Speed Stinger venom as Kingsley slipped away unharmed. Again he locked eyes with Eret's former interrogator, his hood spreading as wide as it could as he rose up to his full height ten feet off the ground.

"Must I repeat myself?" he hissed. "Or should I call in the rest of us before we can speak on quiet terms about this?" Seeing the Triple Stryke nearby about to make a move, he whirled toward the dragon and bared his fangs, warning the larger reptile that he was far, far faster.

A stalemate ensured as the nomad glared at the cobra, glancing sideways at the others occasionally before eventually he relented. If speaking to a creature that was neither sentient dragon or human jarred him, he did not show it as he let out a slow sigh, raising his hand to the Triple Stryke at his side and then to his tribe. "Very well; no fighting, for now," he called, watching to make sure that they lowered their weapons (or in the case of the dragons simply didn't advance any further) before he looked back at Kingsley with irritation. "What is it you want?" he asked. "Your friend is released now by your doing, you could take him and leave."

The cobra sighed, mentally turning on his com. "Arms down guys, they're willing to talk at least a bit," he said into it, before meeting the nomad's gaze with his own again. "If we just ran, that would be leaving behind items that I can tell at a glance you took off of Eret, for one. We need those back. And, where would it leave us? You would still hold suspicions, and we'd have the need to keep watching our backs for more than just the hunters while we pass through here. So, better that we clear the air instead, give you peace of mind concerning us, and us of you."

The rest of the search party appeared over the dunes just then, framed by the last of the setting sun. Spitfire left them and dashed forward, practically bowling Eret over as the dragon made sure his friend was okay. The sudden movement caused several of the Tuareg to raise their weapons again, but when the Changewing ignored them entirely they relaxed again at the sight.

Eret laughed and rubbed the Changewing's head and neck in return. "Yeah, yeah, happy to see you're fine too," he chuckled.

::And you should be more careful while on lookout, numbskull,:: Spitfire scolded, taking advantage of Eret's inability to understand him, though the trader was more than aware of it. ::Maybe I should stay up with you next time.::

"Aw man, we missed all the action, didn't we?" Tuffnut complained as they came to a halt next to the others, collapsing his spear with a pout.

Cami snorted and pushed him. "That's a good thing, dimwit."

"But it's not fun!"

"Alright, enough you two," Attonius barked, stepping forward as he was flanked by the raptors and nodded cordially to the nomad. "So that we don't have any further altercations, let us please clear this up and perhaps we can lend hands to each other instead," he offered. "My name is Attonius, minister of God and friend of the Dragon Riders of Berk. What may I call you by?"

"I am Rahan Imullah, head of this tribe," the man said guardedly. "We are nomads in this region, but allies of the dragons that live here and thereby sworn to protect them. We assumed you were among the hunters as they are nearly the only ones besides the Tuareg to travel by this way, and the only ones to ever pass here with dragons or other exotic creatures also in their wake." He eyed Feren as he said that, causing the big cat to return a deadpan glare. "I see how the Changewing has reacted to the man we took, which forces me to second-guess our assumption, but I cannot say I trust what he claimed yet either. What is the purpose of your passing through here, and if not control then what is the reason for those contraptions you have strapped upon the dragons with you?"

The riders looked among each other for a moment, before Camicazi burst out laughing and drew Tuff, Stormfly, and even Melania into giggles. "You…wait, wait, don't tell me you've _never_ seen a dragon saddle either?" she guffawed, leaning against Stormfly to prevent from falling over. "Ohhh my…let me catch my breath. Ha ha ha!" Snorting took over for a few moments as she tried to regain control, earning looks from everyone else, before she continued. "Okay, so let me guess: you work with them here, but you don't ride dragons, do you?"

"We do when on hunt, but never by putting them into riggings that they would not accept to wear," Rahan toned, raising a brow. "And it's not just saddles they wear, but metal plates."

"Gee, I don't know if you've just never met northern dragons before, but you couldn't put a feather on their backs if they didn't want one there," Eret scoffed. "They're as stubborn as the people that live in those islands."

"Yeah, for good reason too," Cami agreed, wiping her eyes. "Besides, it's not like the saddles are for the dragons anyway; they're to keep us from falling off when doing tricks or maneuvers in the air. Or, in my husband's case here, prevent him from falling off when he falls asleep in flight."

"Hey, I don't fall asleep while riding Barfbelch!" Tuffnut protested.

Cami looked at him, unconvinced. "Really. So all those times we go patrolling and I look over to see you sacked out in the saddle are, what, exactly?"

"Uhhh…"

"Thought so." She turned back to Rahan. "There's one, and I mean only one, person back on Berk who can ride dragons regularly without a saddle," she explained, "but she's also been at it for twenty years and by necessity with her dragon. The rest of us haven't. And as for the plates, that's armor. None of us like wearing it per se, but we're not always in safe situations so just like us they wear it to keep from getting hurt."

Rahan still looked skeptical. "So they truly willingly take on saddles for you, and armor to fight?"

"Not like it's a hassle," Stormfly answered, drawing a slightly surprised glance from the nomad. "I mean they barely weigh anything, and the guys who make them have been doing leatherwork and smithing for years, so they know how to make them comfortable; mostly anyway. We worked out the kinks a few years ago. Small price to pay even if they weren't though to fly freely with your best friends. But, grumping about what we wear is really wasting our time here."

She leaned forward, her long neck dropping her head near Rahan, and received a slightly warning growl from the Triple Stryke next to him, making her sigh at the reaction. "Oh lay off Snappy, not gonna hurt your buddy," she deadpanned, before focusing again on Rahan. "You managed to make it very clear that you're not friends with the Coalition of Hunters here, so we stand on at least a little common ground; if that's enough for you to let us do our work, consider us allies. I'm sure Eret tried explaining this to you, but they took one of our own to try and keep us out of their business, and turns out they're involved in some terrible raids committed by savage dragons on Mediterranean communities. So, merchants led us to believe that by following the route we were on we might find their outpost in a spot where they might attempt to hide such valuable things as captive dragons, or whatever they're using to drive them mad. If we find our kidnapped kin, we'll be serving them everything they've earned, and if we find the source of the savage issue, maybe we can stop the fighting further north. So, now I gotta ask: what argument do _you_ have with them, so much that you moved to kidnap one of us as well when you found us at the oasis, hmm?"

"They capture our Triple Strykes to sell to fights in the far south," another in the tribe answered, a young woman in a wrapped blue outfit. She stepped forward with a middle-aged Terror at her side, coming to stand next to Rahan and looking to him for permission to elaborate further. He considered it for a moment before nodding, seeming to have decided the riders at least trustworthy enough to know what the hunters already would, and she continued. "I am Satipha, caretaker of the injured and sick in our camp. Many Strykes I have had to treat for the injuries they sustain in hunters' traps. The Viperwyrms they capture as well for venom, and kill them in the process. Desert Wraiths they take for their scales. A year ago, the dragon who lived as my companion for more than twenty years fell to one of their traps, and three months ago the Stryke that bonded to my brother came back from a fight against them driven mad, attacking us, our animals, an even other dragons; perhaps it was the same illness as what you describe from the sea to the north. We could source no cure for whatever sickness they afflicted him with, and were forced to kill him so that the rest of us would not be irreparably harmed."

Her eyes had gone distant with memory, and had she not been hardened by a life in the desert it was clear to the riders and their friends that she would have been crying at that point. Then, as quickly as it came the look was gone and she focused on Camicazi and Stormfly. "If you speak the truth," she said, "and are going after those monsters who call themselves human with the intent to end this, then I for one would seek to help you." Another look toward Rahan implored agreement, and the man nodded reluctantly before the woman turned toward the nearest tent. A moment later, she returned, Eret's com set and remaining weapons in her hands.

"Follow the path south to the next oasis," she instructed, handing them to the trader, "and in the cliffs west of there they make their outpost. We do not know what is beneath the sands, and guards stand on the cliffs at all times. The dragon they drove mad was the only one among us or the other tribes in the desert to be afflicted, but word does reach us from the coasts as well. The north is not the only place where these hunters have brought savage sickness to the dragons."

"Can ye tell us anything more about their outpost?" Ingavar asked carefully, unconsciously laying a hand on Melania's head. "We cannot attack yet, but we must infiltrate it somehow. Do you know where the entrance is perhaps?"

Rahan laughed derisively. "You would be hard-pressed to get in without a fight," he answered. "As far as we have ever seen there are only two entrances, both at the base of the cliffs and hidden from the surroundings, always in view of the guards above that they post among the crags. We have never seen inside as Satipha said; how do you think you could get in if even a Viperwyrm cannot?"

The Riders exchanged looks once more, and Loki and Cami in particular broke into matching mischievous grins. "Gee, I don't know," the latter mused, looking toward Spitfire. "Hey Spitfire, Twintail Loki, wanna show them how we can hide in plain sight?"

Taking the cue, Spitfire vanished against the sand save for his saddle and armor, and Twintail stepped in front of him, spitting out a small cloud of gas with one head before igniting it with the other, spreading the flames like a rippling cloak before them. Moments later, the mirage-like scene was completed as Loki raised his hand, a shimmering glaze washing over the scene and sending all the riders, dragons, and their allies into obscurity, as if all that was present was the unreal looking bank of flames.

"As you can see," Eret's seemingly disembodied voice answered out from behind the forged mirage, "I think we've got at least a few tricks that might help us get in."

* * *

 **A/N- We're getting closer to the big reveals and serious conflicts, but still a bit of world-building and travel to go I'm afraid. But I hope it's not terrible to read still; what do you think? As always, please leave your thoughts, predictions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Additionally, there's a new entry in the Book of Dragons, so make sure to check that out!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	20. Chapter 19: Subterfuge, Sabotage

Chapter 19

Subterfuge, Sabotage, and Sleight of Hand

/

 _Are you ready for the fall?_

 _Are you prepared for the aftermath?_

 _When the climax approaches all things set to end_

 _When you get close they panic_

 _The reaction always fierce_

 _Your defenses they will find ways to rend_

 _Burn your tracks behind you_

 _Don't give them strings to pull_

 _Or else tied up in their hands you find yourself_

 _And keep your wits about you_

 _Don't ever turn blind eyes_

 _For you don't want to end up mere memory on a shelf_

 _-0-_

Ember wasn't entirely sure if this option was going to end up viable (and really, every other search they'd attempted had come up fruitless, so there wasn't much hope riding high), but the little village right on the coast was one of the few areas they had not actually visited directly yet, and a series of limestone caves within the closest larger mountain were sounding at least a touch more promising than miles of empty forest had been.

However, the length of time that had already passed without even a single clue turning up to show where they should focus was starting to drown them. The red-haired woman glanced worriedly off her shoulder to where Amethyst was flying with Rachel and Silas on her back. The Night Fury was almost visibly deflating as time went by, her son still no closer to being found and in who knew what kind of condition. She tried to hide her growing panic of course, but the result was only more fervency in her peering into every hole and crevice they came by, and thinking over possibilities instead of sleeping and running herself ragged thereby. It worried all of them that Amethyst would have to eventually be returned home for fear that she'd end up harming herself soon, and Hawken had already warned her of the possibility once. Ember recalled very vividly two nights before, and how the argument had only just barely encouraged the Night Fury to actually rest, but it had not come about peacefully. Burn marks were still being patched up on the walls of their borrowed home.

~0~

 _Hawken stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed and foot tapping away as he glared at the pacing black dragon. His impatience was growing, and it was obvious things were not going to cool down before they heated further._

" _Amethyst," he said slowly, "you need to get some sleep or you're going to end up seriously injuring yourself somewhere."_

" _What I need is to figure out how to find my son!" Amethyst snapped back, barely pausing in her pacing as she snapped her tail. Such was the extent of this impatient activity that Ember could have sworn she was wearing a visible groove into the wooden floor already._

 _Hawken had sighed and shaken his head in exasperation. "Keeping yourself up all night won't help you find Tsefan," he tried again. "You need rest or you won't be able to think clearly at all, and that helps no one."_

" _Not using the time I have to come up with plans helps no one either, least of all him! I can rest all I want after he's safe and back home, but until then"-_

" _You didn't sleep at all last night either, did you?"_

" _So what?!"_

" _So you're becoming beyond irritable and clouded in your head. If you get yourself killed because you dozed off in flight or something equally ridiculous, you won't ever_ get _to find Tsefan! If you are so tired you can't lift a paw to fight should we find him behind an army, same thing! You need rest!"_

" _No I don't!" the Night Fury roared, whirling on him and baring her teeth._

 _Hawken was unfazed. "You want to argue?" he growled. "I went through two months straight of sleep deprivation once, barely getting two hours a night, so I_ know _what it does to you! If you don't get hurt then you will be too tired to do anything right, and you'll be nothing but a_ burden _to the rest of us. Burdens I have no choice but to remove from the search entirely! So, if you don't want to be among those actively looking for your own son, then by all means let me know and keep doing this, otherwise"-_

 _Amethyst screeched and fired straight at Hawken for that comment, blinding purple and orange flames erupting around him and licking at the floor and wall behind. It didn't do much, what with the young man being both fireproof and an energy absorber to boot, but as the flames evaporated a moment later they left behind an exhausted looking soul staring back at a Night Fury whose eyes were only just starting to widen at the realization of what she'd done._

" _I won't pull my punches when it comes to the well-being of family, Achlema," Hawken said tiredly. "All of them, not just Tsefan. I will tranquilize you myself to get you to sleep if it has to be done, but I don't want to have to go to extremes that will only aggravate us both even more. Depriving yourself of what your body needs can kill you just as quickly as a poison or an arrow can, and I won't let you do that to yourself. I want you to be there, fully awake, when we find him."_

 _Amethyst hung her head, knowing the irrationality of her actions though not wanting to admit it out loud. She certainly wouldn't have ever tried to fire at her own brother if she were in a sound state of mind. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I…this is hard for me, you know that. He's my son, one of my first."_

 _Hawken had sighed and walked forward to kneel down in front of her, laying a hand on her head. "I know," he replied in equal tone. "He's family to all of us though, don't forget that, and it's hard on us all. But without being prepared in all the ways we need, we do more harm to him than good ourselves. You miss things you need to see when you're only half there, okay?"_

 _The Night Fury nodded, finally settling down to rest, though whether or not she had actually slept was still an unknown._

~0~

The memory was fresh, as was the evidence that Amethyst was still not fully relaxing at night. She was drifting away from her flight path every now and then, eyes scanning the ground but zoning out on occasion as well before snapping back.

Ember let out a long-suffering breath in concern, and directed Orha in the Night Fury's direction. "Hey, you okay there Amethyst?" she asked softly. "You're looking a little worn."

"I'm fine," Amethyst quickly and bluntly responded, but with little conviction behind it, eyes still toward the ground.

"You sure?" Ember pressed, notably unconvinced. "We're almost there; we can rest a moment before we start of searching."

Amethyst turned her head toward the young woman, a spark of irritation in her gaze as she opened her mouth to reply, but seeing the emotions in Ember's eyes, it rapidly died and the biting remark came out as a resigned sigh instead.

"That…would probably be wise for me," she admitted. "I'm just a bit off today."

"Hey, it's okay to admit when we're not doing well," Orha reassured. "None of us are expected to be perfect all the time. We'll stop for a bit, then start working. The caves won't move, and nothing will leave them without one of us noticing."

"We'll hold watch until you're all ready," Silas offered, giving his half-sister a reassuring pat on her back. Amethyst gave a small, but grateful smile up at him in return.

As they crested one more ridge and the village in the valley appeared, Ember couldn't hold back a gasp of surprise at the sight. Beautiful locations were not in short supply back in the Archipelago (especially when one took to dragonback to see them), but the small community ahead, composed of almost delicate looking wood and bamboo thatch houses and framed by curving mountain slopes that ran straight into the static North China Sea beyond in a natural harbor, and all of it blossoming with late spring plant life, still managed to steal her breath away. For just a moment they all had an opportunity to forget why they were all there, simply taking in the view for what it was.

"I forget sometimes the artist's canvas we live in," Rachel commented after several minutes of silence, drawing the group out of their shared daze (even Amethyst had managed to focus on the sight for a time). "We've been in a rather dark mindset for a while now, so easy to dismiss something like this until it sneaks up on you."

"Yeah; we should be able to keep enjoying it from the mountain outcrop over there too," Ember agreed, pointing ahead to where the southern slope of their peak of interest curved gently upward, broken here and there by rock outcrops among the forest blanketing it. "That's where the caves are, supposedly; let's find a spot to set down for a bit there, and then we can start looking around. Some of us at least can start scouting while everyone else recuperates."

They glided across the head of the valley and aimed for a particularly large outcrop halfway up the mountain, one with a sweeping view over the majority of the trees and open to the sun. A handful of lizards scurried away as they landed, and Amethyst almost immediately collapsed against the stone, the raptors jumping off her quickly and letting her stretch her legs and wings on the warm ground. Despite her attempts to keep alert all night in the days prior, within seconds she had lapsed into sleep on the soothing rocks beneath her.

Ember chuckled softly and somewhat primly at the sight, dismounting Orha and letting him lie down as well as she leaned against him. "I thought so," she toned in soft remiss. "I'll help Rachel and Silas; give her a few hours to rest."

"I'll keep by her," Orha affirmed, laying his head upon his paws but keeping his eyes well open, occasionally smirking at the snoring noises coming from Amethyst (quiet, but still snores nonetheless, something vehemently denied by the perpetrator whenever she was accused).

Ember slowly walked away, keeping her steps light both so as not to risk waking the Night Fury but also to keep any chances of her alerting antagonists in the area to a minimum, and climbed up to stand on a higher part of the outcrop to look at the village below again. The faint glimmer of a stream could be seen snaking along one side of the settlement, the other side terraced into rice paddies and higher wheat fields, and houses interspersed among livestock pens. It all ran straight to the sea, where a short beach and more steeply inclined rocky terrace made up the shore. On the bay itself were several small boats, all of them local fishermen working hard to make a day's catch.

It was nearly impossible for Ember to imagine this place as being a spot where Viggo might hide a captive dragon, but she knew in all reality that it only meant that the seemingly peaceful, unassuming atmosphere made it that much more perfect a location. Most would never think to look there, or nearby. Innocence was long lost on those long versed in battle, and every shadow could hide a foe.

However, a peaceful fishing village with recent strife having been had with dragons would probably also fiercely object to anything that might bring more trouble to them, leaving the mountains around them at least a slightly better prospect. Ember slowly turned to scrutinize the slope she stood on: amongst the mix of deciduous and coniferous trees in full spring flush, several nature-made clearings and jagged rock escarpments were nestled, at least a few of which marked the entrances to caves of various depth if Mononoke's information was to be believed.

Ember was tempted to move up and start checking out those hideaways immediately, while Amethyst was asleep, but while it might relieve the Night Fury to wake up to a positive discovery, it could also infuriate her to be left out, and Ember knew hunters and wolves were not the only dangers to worry about here. No, it would be better to wait a bit to have all of her present friends at her back than be alone or with only the raptors with her and semi-vulnerable. Everyone knew, after all, that their barriers were effective only to a point, and if one couldn't fly out of reach it took a lot less to get through them.

* * *

"So I gotta ask, Peter always that uptight about knowing who goes where? I mean, it's not like you're going to do something stupid like run off to tell bad guys where all your weapons are stored or something."

Jaetsu glanced over toward Snotlout with an incredulous-yet-deadpan look, catching the one Natasha returned from behind the Viking that said with clarity, 'Yes, he is in fact asking that. Welcome to my world.' He gave her one of sympathy in return.

"Expecting one's trusted friend to turn out a spy who is feeding our plans or defenses to an enemy is low on the list of reason why he needs to know where we are," the Alagaesian answered slowly. "Losing someone and not knowing where to look is a far more likely and worrying possibility, or perhaps if an injured dragon is found and requires help and the like."

"But it is on the list," Snotlout insisted, sending the Lung Dragon rider a painfully confident grin.

Jaetsu turned his gaze back to Natasha with nothing less than pure disbelief. "And this is a man you trust to search for a kidnapped dragon?" he asked skeptically.

Natasha snorted. "Yeah, so he's got an ego the size of a Bewilderbeast and a mouth prone to run before his mind puts it in check," she admitted, smirking at the immediate protest her comment received from Snotlout. "But, when it comes down to it he does prove out trustworthy enough. There's a reason Hawken made sure he wasn't with you alone though, aside from translating for Fireworm and Caelia if necessary of course."

A pointed look from the raptor met the back of Snotlout's neck, and he knew it. "I'm not incompetent," he huffed.

"Didn't say you were. But, if you want to bring that up…"

"Come on, you're just wanting to make yourself look better. I'm awesome!"

"We'll let personal experience speak for itself on that one."

When he noticed that even Fireworm was chuckling at her rider's expense, Jaetsu managed a grin. "I must take it this is more than just a common occurrence among you all?"

Natasha nodded, and poked Snotlout, earning a yelp. "We all like to bicker, yeah. Probably the only reason the group actually stays together much as it does, ironically. But to avoid continuing on a tangent that doesn't do much but waste time, where exactly _are_ we heading? Hawken paired us with you but didn't say where we were looking."

"If we are to help you find anything related to the hunters and traders, then along the more established overland routes further south might be a greater chance," Jaetsu explained. "Dragons –and I assume you as well- have far stronger senses of smell than we do of course, so if perhaps your missing dragon was brought through there, you may pick up a trail. Or, whatever they chose to use to cover his scent."

"With the few weeks it's already been that might be easier said than done," the raptor replied with a grimace, "but one can hope. But if we find a trader who knows something, that would be even better. The scouts Mononoke sent to the harbor trading port came back empty-handed."

Jaetsu scoffed. "And you trust their answers?"

This time it was Snotlout who let out a loud guffaw. "Trust?" he cackled. "Yeah, right. But Hawken can read a guy's face like a book if they're lying; something about how their faces get real hot."

"Infrared radiation changes and facial tics," Natasha corrected, "when you fib some of the blood vessels on your face dilate and so release more heat, and some dragons can see that. The scouts weren't lying at least, so if there's something there, which we're going to double check after today of course, they didn't run past it. Unfortunately, we can't be sure if they would know exactly who the hunters are that we're looking for."

"You may be surprised," Jaetsu said lowly. "The Coalition keeps its name from here to Europe, even if they do not share names of their leaders often over here. But, they have not bothered us since we distanced ourselves from the coast."

"Well, don't tell me you don't find that a bit suspicious," Snotlout quipped. "You had problems until you moved; now they don't have to worry about you because Mononoke doesn't trust you and keeps you away."

The Oriental nodded in thought. "Perhaps, but how likely is it they are the only ones benefiting from our conflict either? Many factions in this world thrive on war."

Silence fell across the group for a time as they soared further south, aiming for a deep cut in the mountains where trees were missing and one of the still-used trade roads snaked by. Jaetsu's eyes swept over the region, looking for tells that might suggest where someone had a structure hidden off the path; slight indentations in the trees along the side, or clearings not located by rock outcrops. Rapidly enough, he spotted a possible opportunity amongst a copse of gutta-percha trees, and with a gesture of his left hand and a slight nudge to Caelia's side, everyone turned down in the direction of the clearing, coasting down over the trees and into the offset space. As they landed, Jaetsu dismounted and scanned over the area in which they stood, hand on his bow in case of danger. Nothing immediately suggested human habitation or influence, but upon closer inspection as he knelt to the ground, the faintest of old wheel tracks revealed themselves.

"Others have come off the road into this space," he said, looking up at the others. "Check the tree line and up along the hill; if anything appears out of place for a forest, assume that it is and search it."

"No problem," Snotlout agreed. "Hey, bet I find something before you do."

"If anyone beats Jaetsu at uncovering secrets here, it'll be Caelia or Fireworm," Natasha argued, bringing out another scowl onto Snotlout's face. "They've got stronger senses than you do."

"Well I…uh…shut up Natasha."

The raptor snorted in amusement, before turning her focus to the trees. They spread out along the edges of the clearing, poking in the underbrush and, for the reptiles at least, sniffing amongst the leaves and rocks.

All of them missed the distant set of eyes that had followed them in on their flight however, eyes that were rapidly closing the range between the party and their pursuer.

* * *

::If this place doesn't give you the creeps, nothing will,:: Sasha huffed, eyes roaming the collapsing stones and long-since-rotted wood of the ancient fortress in front of us. Taken over by the undergrowth and trees of the landscape, it and the other nearby buildings comprising the ruins had clearly been abandoned for at least decades, if not centuries, beforehand.

Which, in my mind, made the location a prime target for setting up a hidden storehouse somewhere. The local villages almost certainly knew about it, but a combination of old stories we'd picked up from Láng Chéng as well as a lack of any benefits of returning to the place had kept them from attempting to rebuild the settlement. The trade path it sat adjacent to had also been abandoned around a similar time period thanks to a great landslide in the mountains to the west, a catastrophe that had probably contributed to the fortress' demise.

I had some worry about coming here though, and for whatever reason the stories encasing this location had even Peter and the other Alagaesians balking at the notion. In a world where I had seen demons manifest in physical forms, one knew it was unwise to simply dismiss ghost stories and tall tales outright too. Disappearances, floating voices, figures that hunted visitors and vanished into the shadows; these were among the aspects of the legends, and none so far-fetched that I couldn't ignore their possible validity. Hence, I had assigned the other Riders to more standard scouting around the region's trade paths and villages while I took myself and the members of our party more likely to blend into the native area to the fort. When we arrived though, Sasha was entirely correct in his first comment: not the strangest place we had visited over the years at first glance, but there was a distinct sensation of unease that settled in the atmosphere, and the thick, almost dripping vegetation (owing to fog that rolled off the sea and combined with humidity of a nearby spring) obscuring vision didn't help.

::Aw, is the big bad tiger feeling scared?:: Teshra teased her brother from where she'd settled on a tree branch, smirking.

Sasha huffed indignantly. ::No, but don't tell me this place doesn't get under your skin somehow.::

::I will agree with Sasha on this one,:: Fenrir affirmed, the wolf's ears twisting wildly as he tried to pick up clues from around us. Distantly, the calls of birdsong could be detected, the occasional insect, but nearby the forest was relatively quiet, and not just from our sudden entrance. ::Let's start searching quickly; the sooner we cover this place, the sooner we leave.::

::Alright, everyone stay within hearing distance,:: I said, morphing to Viperwyrm and sliding over the brush and rocks as I climbed through the walls of the nearest building in the fortress. ::I'll head to the far end; look for any entrances or hidden passages they might use. If you smell human scent or something that doesn't fit the wild here, follow it with extreme caution or call me so we can see if it leads to something.::

::Got it,:: Sasha agreed, putting his nose to the ground and scenting as his ears swiveled like hyperactive satellite dishes. Teshra followed him, scanning from up in the trees into the distance and acting as the sentry for our group.

I, meanwhile, slipped rapidly across the grounds of the ruins to reach the furthest of the abandoned buildings, scenting the air as I went with rapid flickers of my tongue. Unfortunately, while I did pick up traces of human scent, it was at least a couple of weeks old and impossible to trace with any reliability. If the hunters had been here, it had been some time since, not likely a place then that they often frequented.

The discovery deflated my hopes somewhat. If they had a dragon here to keep alive, there would be more evidence of their presence, so Tsefan likely wasn't here. However, there could still be clues to be found, or perhaps straight answers for the feral issue. If it was an infection or poison, an abandoned place like this could be a good source for dangers both natural and artificial, something that might have been dug up by a local dragon passing by and released to the rest of the populace or a spot that someone could release the causative agent without much fear of disruption or greater suspicion being cast.

I slid over the sharp edges of the crumbling walls the building I'd chosen was made of, nosing aside the vines that had begun to fill the open interior below the lone magnolia blooming in the middle of what once was a decently sized room. Stones had fallen in great haphazard piles, and the scents of small reptiles, mammals, and insects littered the area. Were it not for the stifling atmosphere, this one spot would have looked truly beautiful in an archaic manner.

Searching the edges of the walls, I sought to expose some location that might have hidden secret compartments or covered doors, hopefully marked by human scents or at least artificial enough to be suspicious. Nothing arose however. Deciding the wall's edges may have been too obvious, I turned then to the magnolia, flickering my tongue over the roots; still, nothing revealed itself here either.

Grumbling at the dead end under my breath, I climbed up the branches of the tree to look past the failing walls in order to choose a different ruin to search. The closest one looked similar to that which I now lay above, a single open room, but just beyond it was a slightly larger structure with jagged stones marking several smaller once-rooms within. That looked a touch more promising.

Viggo directed his men intelligently though, and liked to hide things in obvious places as well as those hard to root out so that they would be overlooked, so I made a quick once-over of the second simple space as I made my way past; unsurprisingly, another fat load of nothing.

A crack of a branch made me pause as I entered the third structure however, halfway through a hole in the stone. It did not come from the direction we'd entered, instead emanating from deeper in the forest, so I quickly retracted myself and set my jaw to the ground as I grew out and lifted a pair of ears to both listen and feel for vibrations through the earth. After several seconds, nothing was detected beyond a soft rustle of leaves from the faint breeze present, so I began to relax and re-enter the building (or, what was left of it at this point; the walls were held together more by vines than masonry).

Vines and creeping shrubs had grown over this building more, creating a spotty half-roof that left the ground below far more devoid of vegetation, only small ground-covers holding on and leaving the pockmarked stones both still in the walls and fallen off more exposed to the eye. The first room I crawled into was empty again, unsurprisingly, but as I rounded the half-wall separating the next space, several things came at once to my senses.

The faint trace of human presence returned, but so did a scent I was unfamiliar with, possibly reptilian but unidentifiable. A third scent however overpowered both of those, a complex of almost floral, like the blooms on the plants outside, but tainted in a powerfully chemical undertone. My eyes adjusted rapidly to the lower light, vision following the trace my tongue picked out of the air and landing squarely on an object very much nowhere near as old as the crumbling ruins surrounding me: a small, wooden box, tilted on its side violently and its lid thrown away to permit the contents to spill out. Cautiously, I crawled up to it, tongue still flickering.

A single glass vial had rolled out of the box and cracked against an old stone brick, the dark contents within spilling out into the earth and drying out. It was clear that even this had occurred some time ago, whatever it was within already losing some of the distinct tells that would have at least allowed me to determine a general source, but there was a clear, unnerving chemical trace still wafting off of what was left. Not chemical as in a truly synthetic product made in a lab or off of oil, but chemical like a concentrated toxin from an organic source, something familiar to me from my works with plants and the poison or venom glands in animals.

Even without certainty of origin, the smell was setting off alarm bells in my head. Someone had been here on purpose and had this with them, and the reasons could only be a few: trying to dispose of something dangerous far from other people, harvesting that dangerous something from the wildlife of the area…or purposefully poisoning the wildlife perhaps. And considering how few people in this world had access to well-designed glass containers, my suspicions grew.

Nearby, as they had begun exploring the edges of the main fortress ruin near where they'd landed, Fenrir also picked up a scent he did not recognize. It was reptilian, possibly dragon, but contained scent cues that also made him think mammalian. The closest comparison he could possibly come up with was Hawken's natural scent whenever he morphed, but even that was distinctly recognizable as draconic and human in mix; this, was an unknown.

::Sasha, I might have something,:: he called out softly, just loud enough to catch the tiger's attention.

::Hm? What is it?::

::Scent I don't recognize; might lead us to something of interest.::

::Okay, I'll follow you then. Tesh, keep watch above.::

::Will do, as I have been. With my nose, not like I have much better to do than stare at your backs anyway.::

::Har har.::

They traced the faint trail away from the fortress toward a thick cove of trees, Teshra flitting between the branches above as she scanned the perimeter, before Fenrir suddenly halted, drawing them all to a stop in the middle of the clearing.

::Trail's split off in half a dozen directions right here,:: he said worryingly. ::I can't pinpoint where to follow.::

::A misdirection maybe?:: Sasha queried. ::Is it something trying to throw us off purposefully?::

::One can't decipher the minds behind the maker of the trail just by scent, Sasha. Or at the very least, I cannot yet.::

::Guys,:: Teshra suddenly interrupted, peering into the thicker brush from above, ::we're, uh…we're not alone here.::

The other two quieted down, ears perking high, several moments before a faint rustling of leaves reached them, one not made by breezes. A snapped twig followed, echoed on their other side, as whatever it was approached them from multiple directions.

::Tesh, can you see what it is?:: Sasha asked quietly, his fur starting to bristle. Fenrir's was doing the same.

::No, brush is too thick,:: the Terror answered. ::And I hear more than one. We need to get out of here, they're trying to box you in. Go left!::

Wolf and tiger turned simultaneously to bolt, before a long, eerie howl directly ahead of them froze them in their tracks. To the untrained ear, it might have sounded almost like a guttural low howl of a large wolf, but it was rapidly answered by a rapid series of chitters and shrieks that were most definitely not mammalian. And, they answered from all sides of the clearing, mere yards away.

::Oh no,:: Fenrir whispered, blanching under his fur. ::Sasha, run. Run, now!::

They bolted, heading back the way they came in what seemed like the only opening between the sounds they'd heard, only to be cut off as something large, dark, and scaly charged out in front of them, leaping through the air with intent to kill.

* * *

It was not a particularly inviting cave at first glance, but that only made it more promising to search out. Too small for Orha to fit through the entrance though, so it left Ember, the raptors, and Amethyst to clamber in unaided, given light only by Ember's flashlight and hair, and the glow coming off of Amethyst's scales as they went in deeper.

"Smell anything?" Ember asked, keeping the flashlight pointed at an angle so she didn't blind the raptors too much as they nosed along the cave floor.

Rachel paused in her searching for a moment, inhaling more deeply for a second as her snout brushed a formation. "Well, other dragons have been through here," she said, "but I don't smell Night Fury. I don't smell any human effects either though, so not thinking we'll see anything here. But it is wet down here, so small chance there was something and it could have seeped away."

"Then we'll search through really quick at least," Amethyst decided, crawling past and moving down the tunnel, illuminating the narrow passage in a pale violet light.

Ember sighed, but followed behind anyway, hair glowing brighter to better her view as she was flanked by the raptors.

The cave quickly became dripping wet and muddy, with no signs of human footprints anywhere save the ones Ember left behind and almost ensuring that this wasn't the passage to search for clues. Determined as they were in keeping secrets, Ember was confident the hunters wouldn't set up anywhere where their equipment would be mired by the terrible conditions and wood or other organic objects would be subject to rot readily.

"This would be a terrible hideaway," she finally voiced. "They'll pick a drier cave than this; we should move on."

"Agreed," Silas said, turning. "Higher up on the slope perhaps, where there's less groundwater running through. We might"- He paused, turning toward the cave's depths with narrowing eyes, following the same gaze and tilted ears that Amethyst had.

"What is it?" Ember queried softly, after several long moments of silence as they peered deeper into the cave.

"Some sort of animal," Amethyst replied, taking a step back, "possibly a dragon, possibly something else. We should leave so we don't anger anything territorial I think. I don't believe it's aware we're here yet."

She turned, ushering the others with her wings back toward the mouth of the cave, and a couple of minutes later they spilled out into the sunlight again, muddy and grimy. As the reptiles shook themselves off and Ember heated up and snap-dried the muck before dusting herself off, she looked up to see Orha staring down at them expectantly from a higher rock.

"Well, find anything of note in there?" he asked hopefully, before deflating as the other four shook their heads.

"Lots of mud, wet, and something alive roaming around that wasn't Tsefan," Silas said. "Not a place to store supplies or hide special items. We should move uphill where it's drier I think."

"Any idea what the creature was?"

"No, just heard sounds of movement deeper in the cave that were not wind or water induced."

The Shadowracer nodded pensively, before crawling down and kneeling as Ember and the raptors moved to climb on. "Well, then no point in sitting here. Hop on and let's get going." Once loaded up, he and Amethyst spread their wings and took off upslope, gliding above the treetops as they scanned for other openings, particularly any that were semi-hidden from view below.

Ten minutes later, Rachel spotted a yawning opening almost entirely hidden on the ground by a dense row of trees and strewn boulders. It was a perfect location to hide things from view, so perfect it took several tries for Orha to angle himself down correctly through the narrow gap in the vegetation to land without tearing his wings on either the tall trees or the jagged overhang to the cave mouth. This time, however, the subterranean passage was more than large enough to accommodate the Shadowracer with the others, and so as the rest dismounted and trotted into the entrance, he followed, keen eyes scanning the gloom ahead.

Almost immediately, Amethyst picked up a promising trace as she sniffed at the much drier floor. "I smell people here," she said, though still keeping her volume down, "and they don't smell quite like the natives. It's a few days old, but it's here." She let her nose lead the way as she followed the faint trail, seeing where it led, and the two raptors flanked her to do the same, shuffling deeper into the cave. Ember trailed them with Orha looking over her shoulder and her hand on her bow, as the wide cave narrowed slightly and then made a sharp turn into a larger room. Then, Amethyst and the raptors stopped, turning their heads about in confusion.

"It…it just ends here," Rachel said quietly, "like they just stopped and turned around here, or…"

She trailed off as a slowly building, chattering hiss responded to her words, coming from a side tunnel a short ways up the far cave wall.

"Or they were grabbed and carried off too fast to leave a scent trail behind them," Ember muttered, unslinging her bow. "And this time whatever's up there is now fully aware of us being here." Nocking a small tranquilizing arrow on her string, she raised her weapon up in preparation to fire if necessary.

It didn't help though, as the first of several fireballs exploded toward them from almost directly above them, forcing the quintet to scatter not so much from the heat or force (barriers and flame resistance among all of them taking care of that issue), but because the sudden blinding light hid their view of the attackers. Rolling out of the way and forcing her hair to brighten so she could see above her, Ember looked up and grimaced.

Crawling across the ceiling was a dragon that looked more like an oversized purple house gecko than anything else, its tail vibrating at a rapid rate as if it were angered beyond reason, and Ember could pick up no trace of intelligent thought in its eyes or body language.

"Feral dragon!" she shouted. "Pull back!"

"Shoot it with a tranq!" Amethyst yelled, before firing a plasma bolt to drive the Flame Whipper away.

"If I shoot it and it's on the ceiling, it'll fall and possibly kill itself!" Ember quipped back. "Let's get out, maybe draw it to the ground and then we –holy! Just get out!"

The Flame Whipper clearly had not been responsible for the hissing noise in the side cave, and even headstrong Amethyst was convinced to back out rapidly as the second dragon slid out of its hiding place. Long, muscular, and in a similar state as the Flame Whipper, the brown-tinged Grapple Grounder launched out with a snap of powerful jaws inches from the Night Fury's nose, the vibration causing her field to flare in front of her, and she instinctively fired point-blank at its face before pushing Rachel and Silas out the entrance to the cave room right behind Ember and Orha.

Behind them, the two dragons turned their sights on each other for a bare moment with flashes of flame and stained teeth in powerful jaws before the sounds of the escaping group drew their attention again, and they scrambled after new prey, one across the ceiling and the other snaking along the ground between the grand stalagmites erupting from the floor.

As they skittered out into the narrow exit of the cave mouth, Ember climbed up onto Orha's back even as he was still in motion, urging to the others with her hands.

"Come on, move, move!" she yelled, watching Rachel and Silas jump up behind her and onto Amethyst respectively before their pursuers appeared in the throat of the cave. Now with a dragon on the ground as a target, Ember swung her bow around and simultaneously re-nocked the arrow, pulling it back and firing true. The arrow caught the shoulder of the Grapple Grounder and sent the wiry reptile stumbling, before it fully froze up right in the entrance, giving them just enough time before the Flame Whipper pushed its statuesque companion out of the way to take off into the sky.

"So if it was a hunter in there we might have more evidence they're connected to the feral issue," Ember huffed, looking back and seeing the second feral following them. "If not, another lost villager Mononoke will be unhappy about. We need an open space we can lead him to so we can knock him out safely. Orha, do you see…"

Several echoing roars emanated from below as, from the other cave entrances scattered across the mountain, another dozen or so dragons appeared, each with flight paths as erratic as the first Flame Whipper and all of them locked onto their new quarry.

"Crap," Ember said flatly, before preparing another arrow. "Amethyst! We need to lead them away from the village and lose them! I can't tranq that many dragons without the rest catching up to us first! If they split off, catch their attention again!"

The Night Fury nodded and slowed just enough to ensure the numerous other reptiles now clouding the air kept their focus on her and Orha, as Ember nudged the Shadowracer to move higher. A lone fireball from one of the oversized geckos chased after them, fizzling out long before it ever made contact, but at least they were all focused on the rider and her friends.

Or they were for a while. Then, without warning, something caught the eye of the lone Threadtail in the pursuing party, and with a roar it whirled around and bolted toward the village behind them. Amethyst noticed first, and turned to rocket past the other dragons to catch the Threadtail's attention, but the damage was already done.

The other Flame Whippers followed the first feral in a wave, powering toward the seaside community in the valley. Ember swore and leaned back along with Rachel behind her, directing Orha in the reverse direction, leaning down on the Shadowracer's back to streamline them and catch up with Amethyst.

"New objective!" she yelled over. "Get to the village and warn everyone! No casualties!"

Amethyst, being the faster of the two dragons, bolted ahead, wind whistling over her and Silas as they skimmed the trees. Minutes later, with the ferals luckily well behind, she flared her wings and dropped into the village. The sudden presence of a dragon in their midst was enough to start up a small panic, even as Amethyst yelled out, "Everyone hide or arm yourselves! Feral dragons coming!"

"You…you are not a savage?" one of the nearby villagers asked incredulously, prompting Amethyst to deflate.

"I wouldn't be warning you if I was, now would I?" she snarked. "Silas, climb off and help on the ground, act as a distraction when they get here. We'll try and knock out the rest."

"Got it," the raptor said, jumping off and racing toward an open space where he could act more or less as a target, readying the first of a set of darts of his own in his pack.

Orha reached them moments later, Rachel leaping off as well and following Silas' lead, before the two dragons both rose into the air. Seeing with satisfaction the unarmed people below taking cover in their houses, Ember lifted her bow and grabbed another tranquilizing arrow, aiming for the approaching head of the feral pack.

"We can't call the Alagaesians, so we need to have this dealt with rapidly and cleanly if we can so that we can go get them to take care of these guys," she said. "Amethyst, ready?"

"Absolutely," the Night Fury answered, scales sparking as she readied to fire. "Think we can contact the rest of our group to help?"

"Snotlout and company are too far south, but you can try to call Hawken."

The Night Fury nodded, firing once and stunning one of the Flame Whippers before letting Ember bring it down as she called in to Hawken.

Ember whirled and fired at another as Orha dove through the pack, leading the majority of the dragons on a wild head-over-heels chase, before a worried call from Amethyst drew her attention back up.

"Hawken's not going to be able to help here either!" the dragon said tensely. "There's another big problem that's come up: someone's been hurt."

Ember cursed and grabbed a third arrow, drawing a bead on another Grapple Grounder that had joined the fray at some point and was racing for the nearest house. "Then never mind cleanly!" she snapped. "Knock these guys out and we need to move!"

* * *

"I think I've got something!" Natasha called out, drawing attention from the others scattered in the trees. She stood up from behind the crumbling old wall she had been searching along and looked on as everyone else gathered toward her.

"What did you find?" Jaetsu queried, jumping over a log with Caelia trailing behind him. "Tracks? Equipment?"

"Maybe the latter," Natasha responded, bending down again and picking something up with her claws. "This is not an Eastern origin contraption." Holding out her paw, she revealed an old, discarded wooden arrow, fletched with feathers from European birds and made of a wood that Snotlout immediately recognized.

"Hey, that's a dragonroot shaft, isn't it?" he said, pointing to the greenish tint in the arrow. "And we've seen those arrowheads before; that's a hunter's arrow, got to be!"

"I think so," Natasha agreed, handing it to Jaetsu so the Alagaesian could examine it more closely. "It's old, but that's definite proof that they've been out here at some point, and it wasn't just a trading voyage. There's a touch of old blood still on there too; that arrow was used. Dragon blood, but I can't tell what species." She crossed her arms and frowned. "Either way though, this means they've been after dragons in the area. Spread toward the east again perhaps; we might pick up more clues like this."

The others nodded and moved off again, leaving the raptor to search the direction the crumbling wall snaked toward. Fireworm and Caelia flanked their riders as the two humans walked out through the forest, scanning for anything that suggested prior occupation or a hidden base (unlikely as they were starting to think that to be). While they searched visually, the dragons continued scenting the air, hoping to pick up more traces like Natasha had discovered. The air was rich with the scents of flowers, birds, small mammals, and their humans, but little of serious interest yet.

"And once I had thought just our being here could halt the persecution of dragons," Jaetsu muttered after a while. "Show that we've lived with them for hundreds of years, that they are peaceful creatures when given the opportunity in most cases. It only made us a bigger target after a while."

"Yeah, people shoot what they don't want to like," Snotlout huffed, bending down to pick up something before he realized it was just an overly shiny rock and tossed it away. Straightening back up, he looked over at Jaetsu. "Hawken's always said 'the straight path is the hardest to stick to' or something like that. And it's true; doing the right thing has punched us in the face more times than I can count, and it's a pain in the ass but things tend to work out eventually. Sometimes you've just gotta return that punch to life's face and keep going."

"What do you do, though, when the right path leaves you to watch your family die?" Jaetsu unexpectedly countered with a sigh. "Forgive me for bringing up such a dark tangent, but it's happened more times than I wish to say as well, from both sides of the conflict, the feral dragons and attacks during raids by Mononoke's men."

Snotlout pursed his lips uncomfortably, before shrugging it off and putting on a confident face. "Death's always been a big part of life for us Vikings, so maybe we're not the greatest to ask," he replied. "Fighting was a way of life until my cousin Hiccup ended the Dragon War; still is with all the crazy stuff that's followed after, really. We just punch different people now. I've been told that this isn't the only life though, something follows after, so expecting we'll see everyone again helps. And, my dad always said that crying over it won't help anything, that the ones that died would just want us to get up and keep on running, and he's probably right." He snorted, and gave a wry grin. "My mother would have whipped my ass if she were still around, if she knew how hard I broke down after she was gone."

Jaetsu gave a small smile at that. "Something we have in common then," he said. "Our parents were both hard on us if for good reason. But it still is not easy. I just hope we can finally find something to end this particular plague so that we might find peace with our neighbors again; I miss living on the coast. Building a life there is far easier without"-

CRACCCCKK-BBOOOMMMMMM!

A gunshot rang out from nearby, loud enough that to Snotlout it sounded like a cannon firing by his ear, and for a moment time seemed to slow to a crawl. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the red-orange of his barrier field flare as what was probably the bullet ricocheted off, followed a split second later by something hot and wet speckling the side of his face and neck. His breath hitched in his throat and the air seemed to freeze around him as he slowly turned toward the direction of the shot, eyes widening.

Jaetsu had his mouth open in mid-sentence, but now his eyes were also broad in shock. He slowly looked down to his lower chest, watching numbly as the gaping hole there permitted a red cloak to sweep over and color his clothes. A small choke left his throat, along with a spat of blood, and he collapsed.

::Jaetsu!:: Caelia roared, dashing forward to her rider as Snotlout snapped out of his shocked trance and moving to nudge the Alagaesian up. ::Jaetsu, don't do this, don't leave! Oh god, don't do this!::

"Caelia, step back!" Snotlout ordered, kneeling down and pushing her snout away as he bunched the near edges of Jaetsu's shirt to press against the wound, holding down bile in his throat as his hands colored crimson almost immediately. "Don't –urk!- don't crowd him! Fireworm, get over here, I need those pads in the pack!"

The Nightmare scrambled over as she reached back and flipped open the flap on the pack she wore, and Snotlout jumped up quickly to grab one of the medical gauze pads inside before dropping down to press it against Jaetsu's chest to try and stem the bleeding. The problem though, and he could see it on the ground behind the man, was that he was trying to stem the bigger exit wound, and the entry was still open, all the way through.

Another gunshot made them all jerk in shock, and Caelia shrieked as the second bullet grazed her neck before bouncing off of Fireworm's barrier.

"Natasha!" Snotlout yelled almost unnecessarily, the raptor already running to them. He pointed in the direction the gunshots were emanating from, and Natasha took off without hesitation, leaping through the brush. Snotlout returned to the task of trying to plug the wound he was dealing with, and wondering not only how to close the entry hole afterward but how on earth people could stand this kind of pressure in medical fields all the time. He didn't know much, but he could tell things were bad. The bullet had to have gone straight through a lung and shattered ribs.

Suddenly Jaetsu reached up a weak arm to grab the Viking's wrist. "Don't…I'm not lasting through this," he choked, spitting up more blood. "T-take Caelia back to the village and…hhhrrrhhh…and find an end to this."

A feeling he was very uncomfortable with seeped through Snotlout, one he hadn't felt properly since the day he'd lost his mother, and to cover it over a surge of defiant anger welled up. "No, you stop talking like that," he ordered, using a knife in his belt to slice off a section of Jaetsu's lower shirt to tied down the pad across his chest. 'We're gonna get you back to the village and get Hawken to heal you up, and we'll deal with this together. Got it?"

Looking up to Caelia, Snotlout continued, "Lift him off the ground so I can get the other pad against the entry wound. Jaetsu, you need to hold this here."

Slowly, the hand gripping his wrist complied, pressing down against the gauze instead as Caelia carefully nudged her nose under her rider, and Snotlout grabbed the other pad and a proper cloth bandage. Jaetsu's stifled scream of agony at the movement nearly made his stomach turn over again, but he fought down the nausea and wiped away the dirt clinging to the wet patch on Jaetsu's back as best he could before pressing the second gauze pad against the wound, tying it off with the bandage all the way around the man's chest to hold both pads in place.

"Alright, this is going to hurt, but we need to get you up," Snotlout said, bracing himself before carefully placing his arms under Jaetsu's upper back and legs and scooping him up. Another stifled scream tore at his ears.

Natasha couldn't afford to be focused on the sounds behind her, meanwhile; she was pinpointed solely on the scent of black powder smoke leading her into the forest. Before long, her quarry appeared: a small man of semi-Asian background frantically pushing a new powder load and ball into the barrel of his gun. Seeing him clearly trying to ready another shot, Natasha's eyes narrowed further and she let out an enraged shriek that sounded almost as piercing as torn metal on metal.

The man glanced up, eyes widening in panic when he spotted her barreling toward him, and rushed to finish off his reloading attempt before swinging the gun up. Natasha leapt at the same time the weapon went off, a flash of flame and smoke before her barrier lit up like a neon sign. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off and dug itself deep into the soft ground nearby, but the raptor did not halt, slamming into the man in another short flash of orange and knocking him over before she sank her claws into his arms, the gun flying to the side as he was pinned. The pain made him yell out, before Natasha reared back and slugged him in the face with a balled fist, knocking him out cold.

The raptor sat back, snarl still frozen on her face, before she grabbed the gun and hooked her claws around the man's upper shirt, dragging both back toward the others. Finding this was not reassuring; she recognized the clothing he wore as the outfits of Ashira's guards, and they and Mononoke's men, by their own admittance, were the only ones permitted to have the weapons Ashira's people crafted. By this incident, Mononoke's alibi was failing, under blood, and it only made Natasha more infuriated at the thought.

Snotlout was already on Caelia's saddle when she got back with her captive, securing Jaetsu as best he could, but the situation wasn't reassuring; a slow, but steady trickle of blood ran down the Lung Dragon's already flushed scales, dripping onto the ground.

"You found him," Snotlout noticed, and his expression darkened. "Tie him up and take him on Fireworm; I gotta stay here and make sure Jaetsu doesn't fall off. It'll keep me from killing that bastard too. We've gotta go now."

Natasha nodded and dragged the unconscious man to the Nightmare, who snarled.

::Yeah, I know,:: Natasha agreed, grabbing a length of rope as she threw the gun wielder over Fireworm's saddle. ::But, Peter and Hawken might pinpoint what's going on if they can interrogate him, so we can't just off him here and now, satisfying as that would be.:: She finished tying the man up, before jumping up on the saddle and looking over to Snotlout.

The Viking nodded and nudged Caelia. "Okay, let's move! Whoa!"

The Lung Dragon wasted no second taking off, Fireworm following closely behind, and when Snotlout resituated himself from the sudden movement he placed his hands on Jaetsu's shoulders, stabilizing him.

"You stay awake, you hear me?" he urged. "No passing out, you can't pass out on us."

"Snotlout," Jaetsu weakly interrupted, "j-just promise me you'll take…care of this problem, you and your friends." He gave a weak smile, stifling a cough that would have hurt ever more. "You h-have a better chance than we ever did." His hand reached over and found Snotlout's, looking for an assurance of the promise.

Snotlout moved to protest again of the worst case that his wounded companion seemed fixed on, but at Jaetsu's pleading look, he could only close his mouth a nod, gripping Jaetsu's hand firmly to the other rider's relief. Then, Snotlout leaned up slightly and turned on his radio headset, keying in Hawken's code mentally. "Hawken, if you're close enough to hear, answer me please," he urged.

A moment of static passed before Hawken's tense voice replied, "Snotlout? I'm in a bit of a situation right now; this had better be important."

"Jaetsu's been shot, and we've got the guy who did it. We're heading for the Alagaesian village, but it's…it's not looking good."

Silence passed for a second, allowing Snotlout to pick up the occasional sound of several different growls coming through the headset, before Hawken responded again with a grave tone.

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

* * *

The sudden chorus of howls and snarls brought my head up from my observation of the spilled chemical, and Fenrir's yell sent me slithering out of the building before I morphed again, flaring black Night Fury wings and rocketing toward the noise.

::Fenrir!:: I roared, but he didn't answer directly. Another assembly of territorial and hungry snarls did however, and a chill ran down my spine. I located the covered path they were on shortly and dove into the trees, flaring my wings with a warning screech at the sight that greeted me.

There were nearly a dozen of them surrounding or pinning Fenrir and Sasha, somewhere between 15 and 20 feet long with whipping, powerful tails and almost canid-shaped heads with large, swiveling ears. Snarling jaws revealed long, pointed teeth that turned to snap in my direction, those that weren't dragging my friends down, and one of them leapt at me with a swipe of claws better fit for a Nightmare.

I gave another shriek of anger and twisted as I landed, ducking under the Wyrewolf's attack (no doubt that had to be what these creatures were; dragons that looked more like scaled mammals and like no other I had ever seen) before I morphed again, black scales turning even darker and my claws lengthening as well as I whirled and pinned my would-be attacker, my form blurring as I turned to Shadow form.

::Intruder! Our prey, leave!:: one of the other Wyrewolves snarled at me, bringing up my attention again to the rest of the pack, and my friends whom they had mostly immobilized. With a savage hiss I turned and swept over to them, coils of black sweeping between my friends and the jaws of the dragons, forcefully wrenching the predators off before I planted myself over the pair, tail coiled around them protectively and wings flared wide as the shadow ropes slid over my scales in ominous waves.

::My _pack_ , not your prey,:: I growled back, head dropping low in challenge. If what Mononoke and even the Alagaesians had said were correct, these were no creatures I would find easy to reason with. ::You touch them again, I will _kill_ you.::

Then I turned my head to the mammalian pair I had centered over. ::You okay?:: I asked.

::I just had two-inch teeth in my side, what do you think?!:: Fenrir wheezed, and my eyes caught the gashes in his abdomen where openings in his armor had permitted entry. Sasha sported a couple of bloody spots between the pieces of his armor too, but his being able to morph and change sizes had let him avoid all but his main attacker's fangs and claws, and so he remained less injured. I scowled at the sight and suddenly demorphed, causing the Wyrewolves to jerk back in shock as I turned to place my hands on the wolf and tiger, healing over their injuries. What worried me the most is that they had been so easily hurt despite their experience and protections, so my eyes never left the dragons surrounding us, even as Teshra landed on my shoulder and bared her teeth at them.

::I feel useless right now,:: the littler Terror complained. ::I don't have any energy stored to make fields and fire won't do anything.::

I huffed and stood up with the other two, turning to where the majority of the Wyrewolves stood as I unfurled a long, finned tail again, coiling it behind me and the mammals as I bared claws toward the dragons. They were wary now, unable to determine what I was, but growing agitated at that fact as well as my standing between them and their still-breathing "prey."

::Stand down!:: I snapped, letting energy spark around my arms and subsequently letting Teshra charge herself. ::I mean no harm if you stay back. This is my kin, you will not harm them.::

Fur-like hackles of fine feathers rose as one of them stamped a paw forward. ::You…not dragon. What are you?:: it growled. ::You demon?::

::Human,:: I responded, ::with God's gift. Family also gifted; we don't want to fight, we here to solve problem, danger to dragons.::

::Humans poison, hunt us!:: the same Wyrewolf argued, setting off the others to growling again; I heard one coming up behind us, and erected spikes along my tail in warning. ::Humans friend wolves, enemies and food!::

Fenrir bristled at this, but I held up a hand; it was a natural association here much as we didn't like it, but an issue for us now.

::Only some humans enemies,:: I said. ::Others can be friend if problem solved. You hunt wolves, tigers, but could hunt deer or fish, humans would not hunt you then. But other hunters hunting you for hate; we want to stop them. Let us be, so we can.::

Clearly the Wyrewolf that I assumed to be the pack alpha wasn't convinced, and internally I scowled. Peter had warned me they were one of the primitive species, sentience barely developed, which meant at best they probably only just grasped what I was trying to get at but their instincts spoke louder. We, on the other hand, had also probably found all that we would here, so we needed to just leave.

Suddenly, my dematerialized com set went off in my head, distracting me. "Hawken, if you're close enough to hear, answer me please!" Snotlout's voice came through, making me focus elsewhere for just a moment. One of the Wyrewolves attempted to take advantage of that distraction, leaping forward under my guard and at an unbelievable speed to snap at Sasha, only for first Sasha to shrink and roll out of the way and then Teshra to whirl and drive back the dragon with an over-energized flame jet.

I shook my head and focused, setting up a barrier over all four of us and materializing my com. "Snotlout?" I called back in. "I'm in a bit of a situation right now; this had better be important."

"Jaetsu's been shot," Snotlout responded, "and we've got the guy who did it. We're heading for the Alagaesian village, but it's…it's not looking good."

I fell silent, motionless as I processed this. Only Mononoke and Ashira's people, supposedly, had guns, and I knew they visited the trade ports and routes regularly. This was not boding well for our agreement with the wolf and her people.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," I said, and I heard Snotlout give a sigh of relief before yelling to whoever was with him right then to head to the village, pronto.

I let the com shut off, knowing now where we needed to be, and looked at the others. ::Everyone hold on, we're leaving,:: I announced.

::We're not talking these guys down?:: Sasha asked worriedly, looking around us at the Wyrewolves still waiting for another chance at us.

I sighed and shook my head. ::Gotta choose our battles Sasha, and right now making sure that Jaetsu doesn't die is the better one. We're not getting anywhere with the Wyrewolves anyway.::

Filling them in that Jaetsu was in a bad way stymied further protests, and I turned my eyes to the pack surrounding us. ::Stand back, or you will be hurt,:: I warned, though I didn't expect them to move as I raised the barrier and morphed. Rather, as I thought would happen when the other three grabbed hold of me and each other, they rushed us, intent on taking us down when they could. Jaws opened wide as they converged, giving me a disturbingly close look at razor teeth and dark throats, and snapped down hard.

They closed on air and the occasional ear of a pack member instead, nothing left in physical form as I took us all into shadow and left the primal pack lost and confused. Shaking my head, I turned and swept us all away from the area, flowing through the trees and ground at a blinding speed as I raced toward the Alagaesian outpost.

::This is without question the most disturbing way I have ever traveled,:: Fenrir commented. ::Did you find anything at all in the ruins?:

::You get used to it after a while,:: I commented dryly, and possibly. ::You heard them say 'poisoning', right? I found a bottle of something broken open in one of the old buildings that smelled like organic chemicals of some sort. Almost certain at this point that the feral problem is human-induced somehow.::

Silence overtook for a moment, and the others started realizing there was probably more to it than that. Before they could ask though, my com turned on again.

"Hawken, we've got a situation here!"

"Dammit!" I cursed, focusing on the com through our ethereal state and answering tersely, "What is it Amethyst?"

"Feral dragons attacking a coastal village about fifteen miles north of Láng Chéng. We tried to lure them off but they went for the people anyway. I don't know if we can hold them all off."

A thousand different sentences came to mind right then, the vast majority of them not proper to say aloud. It didn't make much of a difference though, as there was a more pressing emergency I had to focus on. "Amethyst, I'm sorry to do this, but Snotlout literally just called me and told me Jaetsu was shot, possibly lethally, so we have to head back to the outpost to try and help him. You guys are gonna have to be on your own."

"Oh," was the slow reply. "We'll"- a pause as I heard Amethyst fire a shot, before she continued. "We'll do as best we can then. Let the Alagaesians know when you reach them." The com clicked off, and I relayed the info to the others, letting it sink in, but our minds quickly returned to the present emergency and the problematic situation around it.

::You think you know who did it, don't you?:: Teshra queried slowly.

I nodded. ::Jaetsu was shot, let me repeat, and there are only a handful of people who are supposed to have guns around here. You tell me who you think might be responsible for this mess.::

::Ashira and Mononoke,:: Fenrir sighed. ::If Mononoke is telling the truth, then she's been getting undermined; she will fight that notion, you know that.::

::I know,:: I replied, before my voice hardened. ::But if that's so, then she's trusted someone she shouldn't have and has thereby permitted both human and dragon deaths that could have easily been avoided. Plus I'd say that it's really, _really_ convenient that a feral raid just so happens to have occurred while we're all split up and Jaetsu's been injured. If I find out they've been straight-out lying to us…::

I didn't need to finish that sentence. They knew it wouldn't end well, especially if I found this was related to the hunters in any way as well; we'd been strung along for far too long at this point, and if all we'd had here was a self-righteous queen stringing us along for allies we couldn't stand…well, retaliation would be swift and to the point.

* * *

 **A/N- Back with a long chapter; it's time things start falling apart. We're getting closer to the first major conflicts/revelations, and it won't go smoothly...**

 **Also, I'm sure you all have seen the new trailer that was recently released...AAAHHHHHHHH IT'S ABOUT TIME! I'm not hugely thrilled with the design of the "Light Fury," but her abilities interest me, and it looks like things are going to end in a very exciting manner. Funny thing: looks like they're gonna end up giving Toothless one of the same abilities Amethyst has here...And, I hope the last antagonist ends up being as good a foil to Hiccup as the series made Viggo, otherwise that will be disappointing.**

 **Anyway, thoughts on the chapter? Predictions, questions? Want to discuss the trailer with another HTTYD nerd? Leave a review!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	21. Chapter 20: Altercations and Evidence

Chapter 20

Altercations and Evidence

/

 _Jump and slide from chance to chance_

 _But ever still fall short_

 _Missing clues and open cues_

 _But then, is it all that new?_

 _A chance to say what's been some time known_

 _Or the link to end a strife_

 _But choices made and happenstance_

 _Leave resolutions still behind_

 _-0-_

Another island, another empty failure.

After sweeping the area for any signs of hunters or other dragons, the only upside the group had yet found was that they would likely be able to set up camp on this one without fear of territorial reptiles driving them out. Unfortunately, that also meant they were no closer to finding out where Viggo might have been hiding, and therefore no closer to either Tsefan or the answer to the feral plague that the Coalition was now almost unquestionably facilitating the spread of.

As tents went up, Toothless lay dejectedly against the trees at the edge of the meadow, feeling too many emotions to settle on just one. Hopping from island to island for weeks ironically made the adventurous dragon, who under any other circumstances might have been nomadic, start to grow homesick. He wanted to see his other four children again and be reassured that they were safe, to see the rest of whom he considered family again: Amethyst, Hawken, the other Riders and Descendants that weren't with them, and so on. This had been the longest in years that any of them had actually been split up from each other, and most of them were too far for anything but the emergency transceivers to reach, so not even a leisure call to make sure everyone was okay was possible. The only real solace was that Berk may have been in range, and nobody on the island had attempted to make calls to report any issues.

Toothless was also feeling ever more strangled by worry over Tsefan, the whole reason they were actually out here in the first place. The best they had was the word from their nemesis that his son would not be killed, which was in no way reassuring either. Viggo had never said any other form of harm wouldn't occur; rather, he implied it would with any provocation. Toothless imagined Night Fury scales, teeth, claws, or other parts would fetch a high price on that nauseating black market, a thought that made him want to launch his lunch across the clearing. His son could be sitting in a cell being used as a living resource, but kept alive so that Toothless and the other Riders wouldn't attack the captors.

What was worse, losing him or imagining a different constant torture that he could be in? The choice made Toothless' skin crawl.

Worries didn't end there. There were those with him as well. Wondering if others that you couldn't see were okay was always a source of anxiety, but seeing friends and family at risk in person made for an even more direct, piercing fear. Toothless knew of course that everyone in camp were capable of protecting themselves, and had proven as such over and over, even their newest friends the two mammals from Narnia. But, experience had also proven that accidents happen, more often than not. Having already seen a dozen unexpected conflicts arise while they'd been island-hopping, Toothless now felt constantly on edge.

A soft padding of feet drew the Night Fury's attention off to his side, though his distant gazing returned shortly thereafter when he saw it was only Meatlug approaching. The Gronckle settled down next to him and observed him with a concerned eye.

::Not taking this easily, are you?:: she asked softly.

Toothless turned a deadpan glare to her, ears falling flat, and Meatlug huffed.

::Don't be like that; we all understand. You have us to talk to if you need it though.::

::Talking doesn't help when we're getting nowhere,:: Toothless half-heartedly snapped back.

Meatlug blinked at the quip, but wasn't swayed much. ::I see,:: she mused. ::You know that not everything can happen in quick succession; we're not just handed everything we want. But, I imagine there's only so far that Viggo can hide himself or Tsefan away. We'll find something eventually.::

::We need to,:: Toothless sighed. ::This long with nothing is going to give me a heart attack from the stress soon. I'm beginning to think that we'll have to get a miracle shipwreck turning up at our feet or something in order to point us in any useful direction.::

::Be careful what you wish for,:: Meatlug cautioned. ::A miracle hunter's shipwreck maybe, but we don't just want any old boat showing up, especially one of our friends'.::

Toothless managed a weak chuckle at that. Okay, sure, he acquiesced, before turning his gaze to the others again.

All the tents were just about set up, and Holly was lying in the middle of the clearing against Nara as she sharpened one of her many small knives, watching the others as well. As Nick clambered out of his and Judy's tent, he spotted her looking in his direction, her expression contemplative and highly disconcerting as she rubbed her blade across a whetstone. The fox cocked an eyebrow before turning away to put his small pack inside, but he could still feel her stare on his back, and it was making his fur rise.

Finally, he turned back to her and inquired, "So, did I do something that I'm not aware of, or do you suddenly just have a need to pick a target you need to disturb?"

Holly's expression remained unchanged for a moment, before an equally off-putting smile appeared. "Mostly the latter," she chirped.

Nick deadpanned her. "Does sadistic emotional terrorism run in the family or something?"

"A little."

"Mostly just you then?"

"Mostly just me. You'll learn to love it."

The tod crossed his arms, regarding her skeptically. "One might describe you as disturbed, possibly deranged."

Holly only laughed as she continued sharpening her projectiles. "So I've been told," she drawled. "Not gonna change though; I like keeping guys on edge."

"And sharpening a knife that you guys told me never got dull doesn't help."

"Oh good! Let me keep at it a while then."

"Hey, we might finally have a couple people who can really compete with your annoying jibes Slick," Judy chuckled, also appearing out of the tent and exchanging space with Nick.

"A couple?" the fox asked, looking at her oddly over his shoulder as he arranged his side of the tent as needed.

"Yeah; besides Holly, you might have Hawken and Camicazi. The latter I'm certain might be as quippy as you."

"Probably worse, depending on how you look at it actually," Astrid commented as she popped out of her own tent. "Nick thinks he's funny, and though he likes getting under people's skin most of what he says are just jokes. Cami purposefully ribs people just to see how far she can get pushing their buttons before they explode."

"So, Nick on a bad day," Judy mused.

Astrid nodded. "But all the time. When it's just puns and snarky comments, that's the realm of the Carltons and their friends."

"Guilty as charged!" Holly sang, drawing snorts and chuckles from the others.

Judy shook her head in covered amusement and leaned down, before catching a whiff of her fur and grimacing. "Ookay, it's been way too long since the last wash-down I had," she griped. "I'm going to head over to that lake we saw nearby and scrub some of this grime off."

"If you wash your suit too, make sure you take the equipment off," Fishlegs warned. "Not all of it is soak-proof."

"Probably won't," Judy replied, "but I'll keep that in mind."

"And I'll come with," Astrid decided. "To keep watch and make sure we don't get bothered."

"Uhh, look, you guys may or may not be used to communal bathing or something, but we're _kind_ of accustomed to privacy in Narnia," Judy said uncomfortably, earning a laugh from Astrid.

"No, no, nothing like that," the Viking said. "You'll have privacy, don't worry, but this is still a big enough island and we can miss things, so better safe than sorry to have someone nearby. And if it really comes down to issues like that, don't forget that two of our friends are big cats who at best wear a bit of armor occasionally. We understand biology and we're not going to bother you over it."

"Well, on that cheery note, you guys go have fun and I'll go make a visit to the little boy's tree," Nick chuckled, standing up out of his tent and heading for the forest. "Do I need a bodyguard too, or should this activity be safe for singles?"

It was meant as a jibe, but Hiccup took the question seriously. "Best just to be safe," he answered, to the fox's slight dismay (but Judy's amusement). "Embron, go with him? And everyone try not to be gone too long."

"Well I don't have anything to read, so I shouldn't be too long," Nick joked, before he and Embron disappeared into the trees.

"Ugh, males," Judy grumbled, staring off toward where the two had gone with a glare and drawing a chuckle from Astrid as they, too, headed in the opposite direction with Thorn tagging along behind. "Are they all that crass?"

"At some point everyone in our little group is," Astrid warned. "Better get used to it. All in good fun though."

The two girls headed through the forest until they reached the shore of the lake, a pristine freshwater pool fed by a slowly trickling set of creeks on one end and emptied by a larger stream heading seaward on the far side from them. After waiting for Thorn to make a quick circle to ensure the area was safe as best she could tell and squawked down at them to give the all-clear, Judy ambled down to the shoreline and began to pull her Myscale outfit off. Then, she paused to glance at Astrid, who was still standing nearby.

"Uh, mind a little less direct line of sight between us?"

Astrid started a bit at the reminder, before smirking and giving a nod as she stepped behind one of the larger nearby trees. "Sorry; I'll be right here then if you need anything. Are you really that bothered? Reepicheep didn't even wear clothes when we met him and he was a pretty standard Narnian I thought."

"Well, the more bipedal, or 'anthropomorphic' as I heard someone say somewhere, the mammal lineage is, the more modest we've become, okay?" Judy explained as she undressed fully, laying her clothes on the drier rocks along the shore before stepping into the water. The sudden cold made her stifle a surprised yelp, but she grit her teeth and steeled herself before settling down deeper and moving to scrub her fur down with the biting water. "I mean, I get it, I'm still an animal, and yeah you guys are used to the dragons, Sasha and Feren, and…uh, was Fenrir his name, the wolf? Anyway, but we've picked up a lot of human traits over the centuries, and a liking for privacy was one of them."

"No, I understand believe me," Astrid assured. "When Toothless first started falling for Amethyst we teased him about it for so long because he'd lost the usual open attitude most dragons have about…well, natural life processes, because he'd been hanging around Hiccup for so long, and it was entertaining. I think it's just gotten to the point where we deal with every animal we come across that's not…well, your typical animal as more an individual case, but we lean toward how the ones we know usually react still."

The Viking shifted against the tree trunk as she waited, and as time ticked on her mind drifted from that topic to a different one relating to the Narnians; these two in particular. She knew it would not be the most comfortable to bring up either, but had started to become so obvious in the past week or so that she had to ask; Toothless had hinted already at it weeks before, after all. "So," she began slowly, "speaking of individuals and falling for others, when do you plan to tell him?"

The splashing sounds stopped abruptly, telling Astrid that she'd struck home, and sure enough though she couldn't see it, Judy was lowering her ears out of reflex to hide a blush under her fur as she slowly tried to get back to scrubbing.

"Uhh…I've got no clue what you're talking about."

"Judy, girls know how other girls react to things, you should know that. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. You wouldn't have paused so long in responding otherwise."

"M-maybe you're just reading into something that's not there."

"Right. You want to tell me that your perking up every time you spot Nick, even if you two were separated for all of two minutes, or that goofy expression you get when you start daydreaming while we're flying and you glance his way is nothing?"

"Astrid…we're good friends, come on. Anybody gets happy when their friends show up."

"Hiccup and I were 'good friends' once as well, and we tried denying it at first while everyone around us pointed it out. Believe me, from experience, it's better to admit it to at least someone else, and best if you're honest with him especially when it's obvious that he likes you as well. Unless you've completely missed it when he puts himself in harm's way to protect you, how he stares at you like you're the finest painting that ever existed when he thinks you're not looking, how his"-

"You know, maybe I should have insisted more on coming here alone," Judy quipped.

Astrid laughed. "We wouldn't have allowed it, you know that. But you should think about at least asking him; people say they're afraid that it'll make things awkward, but if everyone else has already noticed then I doubt it's much of a risk."

Another silent second passed before Judy sighed. "Astrid, even if he does… _like_ me in return, we're kind of two entirely different species; I don't know if that's something that can be overlooked."

"I see. Well, last I recall, the Bible has strict rules about _humans_ and what they are allowed to do relationship-wise, but God's got a different set of rules for the rest of nature, and you two are not human. Nature works in funny ways, see, and different species pair off more often than you might think." Astrid snorted as a thought came to her. "In fact, we've got a yak back on Berk that's enamored with a Snifflehunch that hangs around its pen a lot, which is way beyond two small mammals liking each other." She shifted against the tree to find a more comfortable position, looking at her nails. "What it really boils down to, Judy, is unless you're going to worry about what some random person on the street is going to think, pretty sure your heart's meant to tell you where you need to go. I know the group you're with here isn't going to put you down just because you"-

A sudden, louder splash followed by a surprised yelp cut off her sentence, and Astrid jerked up, looking around the side of the tree. "Judy?" she called, but no answer came. Instead, she was greeted by rings of ripples spreading from the shore out across an otherwise empty-looking lake, and a missing rabbit.

"Judy!"

* * *

Embron had been attempting to just keep watch and pointedly ignore the talking bush nearby, but it continued to insist on conversation despite the activity going on behind it and clearly not as bothered by proximal company as Judy was.

"So are all females that iffy about privacy, or is it just the ones I meet?" the bush asked. "I mean, yeah, I don't like anyone staring at me with my pants down either, but better safe than sorry."

"Considering the conversation I'm being forced to have with a fox doing whatever foxes do behind shrubs, I'm going to say it's probably more a girl thing," the Nightmare sighed. "But then everyone is different. Hiccup's probably the most finicky person I've seen when it comes to privacy, while some of the women on Berk are…well, safe to say they're very confident in themselves." He caught sight out of the corner of his eye of Nick reappearing from behind the bush, re-buttoning the tailhole on his outfit and zipping his pants up, and turned to face his direction again. "Though, in most respects concerning personal lives males and females are not that different."

The fox looked up at the Nightmare, curious smile on. "Oh? And in what way do you reckon?"

"You and Judy for example; you're both painfully oblivious to each other."

Nick's smile vanished, and a cautious sidelong stare replaced it. "Uh huh," he said skeptically, and then countered, "you wanna call me oblivious when I've got night vision and a sense of smell better than anyone else here?"

Embron grinned as they slowly started to trudge back toward camp. "Case in point Wilde. I'm not talking about random goings-on or finding evidence for our search, hence I said 'to each other.' You two dance around each other like moths around a light bulb."

"You're trying to say…you know what? I don't think I like where this is going, so I'll just jog away now and see you back at camp, sound good?" Nick deflected, starting to trot ahead. He was halted as a dragon tail swung around to block his way, and turned to scowl at the Nightmare that wore a now far more serious expression.

"Your actual backstory might be a little bit different from the one the rest of us saw in the movie, Nick," he began, "but it had to be similar enough that by now you should know that ignoring something obvious won't make it go away. Confiding in someone else, at least if you're not ready to confront the issue directly, is going to at least help keep you from exploding from holding it in so long." Seeing the look that was forming on the tod's muzzle, Embron quickly warned, "And if you make a bathroom joke off of that I will smack you hard enough to send you back to camp without touching the ground. I'm being serious, and I'm trying to help you; I know these things can feel overwhelming to face just as much as any battle or test."

The reynard sighed, and spread his hands. "Alright, so since you clearly won't let me leave until you talk this thing out, what is the preconceived notion that you're having about me here?" he relented.

Embron snorted. "It's not a bad thing, Nick; you and Judy like each other, and I mean as more than just best friends."

"You been rolling in Dragon Nip recently? How'd you pull that one out of thin air?"

"That grass has no effect on Descendants if we choose not to let it, Nick. And, may not be as sensitive as yours, but I have a strong sense of smell too, along with eyes and ears that pick up the obvious. It's kind of a neon sign when another animal starts letting off pheromones that aren't among the usual complement of scents."

Nick wilted. "So you're saying I'm unconsciously announcing to the world that I like a rabbit," he deadpanned.

Embron nodded.

"And all of the dragons and Descendants are aware of this?"

Another nod.

"What about the humans?"

The Nightmare huffed. "Well, they can't detect pheromones, but I know Toothless mentioned it to Hiccup and Astrid, and they probably have seen other clues like we have. You two send each other googly eyes all the time when you think the other's not looking."

Nick groaned and threw his hands up in the air. "Great; so I can't keep secrets because my own body betrays me," he complained. "Alright, fine Nosy, answer me this: why, then, haven't I picked up anything from Judy, or why hasn't she reacted to me? Pretty sure she doesn't feel the same way."

Now it was Embron's turn to stifle a groan, and he knelt down to poke Nick in the chest with his snout. "It's called scent blindness, dolt," he growled. "You've been around her for long before you met us, and you've gotten used to her, and her you, so you don't notice the change when you're around each other. It's just her normal scent to you and vice versa now. You're just afraid she'll blow you off and she's probably feeling the same, because you're not instinctively wired per se to pick up on rabbit pheromones and vice versa so you miss it. Combine that with being scent-blind to her, you're mistaking her optimistic attitude as being one and the same with the reaction of her lighting up every time she's around you." He shifted and made sure he was looking directly in the fox's eyes, before continuing. "Let me take a page out of my brother's book to explain what's becoming painfully clear to everyone else, okay? Roses are red, violets are blue, wake the hell up Nick 'cause Judy's pining for you!"

Nick scowled at the little rhyme, before letting out another low breath and closing his eyes, head bowing down for a moment. "And if you're wrong about what you're reading into this?" he asked, eyes opening to swing back up to the dragon. "I will admit to you that I care for Judy a lot, alright, but I'll hold that as a secret forever if it means ensuring that I don't disturb her and thereby lose the friendship that I have come to value more than life itself."

"I'm not telling you to run back to camp and announce to Judy as she returns that you love her dearly," Embron placated, poking Nick on the shoulder with his tail, "though you might be surprised by her response if you did –and if you keep a straight face instead of going with the 'it's a joke' that she'd assume at first. But, evidence suggests you're at least a decently smart tod, so I'm sure you can figure out a way to gauge for yourself how she would react to that news. Questions, actions, something that can make her reveal what she's thinking without knowing it, I know you're good at that sort of thing. You're an empathic soul too, someone who's already shown you can read people, yet you haven't even tried to touch the cover of that one."

Nick didn't answer for a moment, leaving an uncertain air around the two, before he sucked in a deep breath and looked up to respond. A second before words left his muzzle however, he paused, his ears perking up as they picked up something in the distance. His eyes widened slightly, and Embron knew that look: the fox had heard something that even the dragon wasn't picking up on, and it wasn't something good.

The second yell, however, even the Nightmare heard loud and clear over the trees.

"Judy!"

Nick morphed from pensive to panicked in a third of a second, turning to bolt in the direction of Astrid's voice.

"Wait!" Embron yelled, chasing after him. "Nick, don't run; get on!"

Nick skittered and slowed, turning to leap onto Embron's back and hook his suit to the tether rope Embron wore as the dragon leaned down for him to reach, and they took to the air up over the trees toward the lake.

Astrid was on Thorn's back already when they got there, skimming the water's surface frantically, and the others reached the lake at about the same time as the fox and Nightmare did.

"What happened?!" Nick yelled at Astrid in panic. "Where is she?"

"I don't know!" Astrid yelled back. "There was a splash, and she'd disappeared! Embron, can you see anything through the water?"

The dragon peered down carefully, trying to spot whatever may have been responsible, but couldn't see anything through the murky liquid and the ripples over the surface.

Another splash turned their attention back behind them, and they spotted the back end of Jake's massive form disappearing into the water as he dove in, the two raptors fanning out along the shoreline as the other riders took to the air over the lake. Three seconds later the rattlesnake's head reappeared, shaking water off before yelling up, "Near the outflow! It's a young Sliquifier!"

Everyone veered in the direction of the stream that emptied the lake, following the ripple made by the rattlesnake as he dove back under the surface again, and when Embron reached the outflow stream Nick did not hesitate for a second before unhooking himself, standing up and leaping off to dive toward where Jake was aiming.

Judy had barely had a chance to suck in a breath before she was pulled under, and the shock of the attack had frozen her long enough for the Sliquifier to drag her halfway across the lake before she came to her senses. The dragon had her by her left leg, though luckily its sparse teeth meant that it had missed piercing her and mostly trapped her foot so that she couldn't wriggle away. But, she was being held at such an angle too that she couldn't turn and kick with her other leg either. She felt her air starting to run out already, so her mind was beginning to go fuzzy as her ears popped from the depth they were at.

The Sliquifier finally slowed, likely preparing to finish off its intended meal, and Judy readied herself. It released her just slightly so that it could turn and open its mouth wider, preparing to swallow her whole, and she took her chance, twisting and coiling her legs before kicking out hard, striking the dragon in the lower jaw.

Thanks to the slowing effect of the water the impact was not as bone-shattering as it would have been from a terrestrial defense, but it was enough of a shock to stun the Sliquifier long enough for the rabbit to turn and start paddling desperately toward the surface above her. Freedom didn't last long though, and Judy felt jaws clamp down on her foot again. This time, however, the dragon hadn't grabbed her at a bad angle and Judy managed to slam her other foot into its snout.

Something cracked (Judy guessed a tooth, maybe the one that had grazed her leg a moment ago) and she was released again as the Sliquifier screeched in pain, and she began to frantically kick through the water again as the edges of her vision started to blacken.

Another scaled form suddenly filled her vision, and Judy briefly panicked in fear of a second wild dragon coming to steal the Sliquifier's escaping meal, before her weary mind managed to grasp the familiar diamond pattern of Jake's hide racing past her to apprehend her attacker. It was slightly too little, too late however, as lack of air took its toll. Unable to resist the urge, Judy let out what little air she had managed to still hold onto and breathed in, taking on lungfuls of water instead and choking, starting to black out.

She barely noticed the other splash from above her, or the blue and red/orange figure diving down after her. Her eyes closed as two paws grabbed her under the armpits, and she started to fade from consciousness fully as she felt herself be bodily heaved upward, something holding her tightly.

Then...air! Judy found herself suddenly hauled above the water's surface, and a set of long talons grabbed her and the fox holding her up out of the lake, carrying them quickly over to shore and depositing them carefully on the rocks. As Embron released them and landed nearby, Judy tumbled out of Nick's arms and heaved, then coughed up the water in her lungs. Then she retched before coughing again, clearing her lungs of liquid and replacing it with air. As her mind started to recover Judy more distinctly felt Nick's paw trembling on her back, and then she began to recognize yelling from nearby as the others gathered around them alongside Nick's panicked words.

"Judy? Judy, are you okay?"

"Guys give her room, let her breathe!"

"She needs help!"

"No, she needs a moment. Judy, just breathe, get the water out. Feeling better?"

Judy gave a shallow nod to the last one, from Quicksilver. "Yeah, I'm…HACK!...I'm okay," she finally got out, still coughing as she sat up. In response, she felt Nick's arms suddenly wrap around her, pulling her into a hug. Startled by the sudden emotional show, Judy went slack, feeling the adrenaline leave her system and her emotions well up too. It prompted her to turn and return the embrace full force, burying her face in Nick's chest and neck. Later, they would blame the tears falling down their faces on the fact that they were just dripping wet from the lake.

"Don't…don't ever do that again!" Nick stammered with a relieved chuckle bleeding into his words.

"Not like I planned that," Judy responded on automatic, sending them both into giggling (and coughing) fits as they refused to break off. A splash nearby however drew them both to look up with concern, only to see Jake appearing, Judy's attacker firmly held in the snake's coils, and they returned to focusing on their hug.

Then someone let out an awkward cough behind them. That was the point at which Judy realized she was still sans clothing, and a furious blush ran up her ears as she separated from Nick abruptly, covering herself with her arms and folding her ears down.

"Eh heh…"

"Oh!" Nick blurted, eyes widening as his own ears flattened back, before he turned away with his own embarrassed expression and brought his tail up to further cover Judy. "Can someone get Judy's clothes?" he shouted with strained calm. "And maybe a towel or two for both of us?"

"On it!" Holly yelled back, she and Nara flying off to where Judy's outfit was still splayed on the rocks, and then back to camp as Judy realized she'd completely forgotten to bring along something to dry off with.

"Thanks," the rabbit said softly to her partner when the two reappeared, handing her and Nick the requested items. It drew a soft smile from the fox.

"No problem," he replied, still looking away, "I'm here when you need me, okay?"

A sudden warmth spread through Judy at his words, the kind having little to do with the towel she was now wrapped in or her embarrassed blushing, especially when his tail curled more protectively around her for a moment as he spoke.

As they separated and Nara came to stand over Judy with a spread wing to permit her to dry off and get dressed with some privacy again, everyone else began to turn their gazes toward Jake's captive.

"She's feral," the rattler said, "not responding to Dragonese, and those ain't intelligent eyes." He looked at the dragon that was trying to turn her head to bite him (and failing). "Tells me this mess is still spreading; question now is, what do we do with her?"

"Is there any way we can avoid killing her?" Hiccup asked hopefully. "The Whispering Death…that was unavoidable, she was too injured, but we should be able to at least run this one off the island, right?"

"If it keeps her away from us, I don't care what you do," Nick quipped, shaking himself off as he finished wiping down his outfit and causing his fur to fluff out, much to Holly's amusement.

"If she is feral then it's not her fault," Judy's voice came from under Nara's wing. "Don't take it out on the…uh…"

"Sliquifier," Nara supplied.

"Okay; Nick, don't take it out on the Sliquifier. I'm fine, okay, just one little scratch on my leg that I'll treat at camp."

Nick huffed, but let the topic slide only because Judy couldn't even manage to hold a grudge here. But he couldn't help but shoot one more glare toward the brownish-green and yellow dragon that Jake was keeping immobile.

"I'll take her down the river to the ocean," Jake decided. "Camp's not near shore so she won't come after us, and I doubt she'll follow me over land or back up the river." He looked at Hiccup in warning. "Unless we come across her again one day though, she'll live life as a violent animal, dangerous t' anyone that crosses her. Remember that; she may die of runnin' across the wrong people anyway, anyone who doesn't know or care what's going on."

"At least she gets some more time now then," Hiccup sighed. "It's not ideal, but…well, I hope we can find a solution, and then maybe find her again."

Jake nodded and turned, dragging the dragon with him back to the water, and then disappeared down the river past the trees.

"Well, from here on out we're going to bathe and collect water from the upper streams," Astrid decided, crossing her arms. "We're not risking this again, whether that was the only dragon in the lake or not. Judy, are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the rabbit retorted, now fully dressed again as Nara removed her wing. "Just a little shaken up. Let's get back to camp."

No one disagreed with that decision, so everyone loaded up on the dragons and headed for the campground. As they did, Judy glanced over from where she sat behind Astrid to where Nick rode with Holly, mouth half open to say something. But, at the last second she lost the nerve to do so and looked away a split second before Nick turned to her with the same expression. It didn't take long for the fox to look back down at his paws either though.

 _It's not the right time,_ they both thought. _I'll say it when this is over; no need to get us both more stressed._

Neither stopped to think how much they might regret that decision later.

A couple of minutes after they had returned, Jake reappeared in camp as well, heading toward Hiccup with a purposed gaze. "Ya might want t' come and see this, Hiccup," he said. "We might've finally found a lead."

"Oh?" the Viking asked, standing up from where he and Astrid were starting a cooking fire.

The snake nodded. "We missed it from above because of the trees, but there's a wreck in the river mouth and what's left of the sail bears the hunters' insignia."

"Well, let's go check it out," Hiccup decided. "Fishlegs, grab Meatlug and come with us; Astrid, get the fire going, but, uh, _please_ let Holly do the cooking."

The warrioress gave her husband an exasperated look, but at his sheepish smile she couldn't deny his point; she still hadn't quite gotten the hang of that art form. Fishlegs saddled up on Meatlug, and Jake coiled loosely around Toothless' neck, and they took off in the direction the rattler steered them.

Jake was right: it would have been too easy to miss it entirely had he not come down the river. The small ship was settled on a sandbar in the river right under an overhanging pine grove a short ways up from the actual ocean delta, just far enough it wouldn't have been visible from the sea either. Its hull was cracked in two, but otherwise mostly intact, and the tattered sails still rippling slightly in the sea breeze did indeed hold the insignia the Riders had been seeking.

"Looks rather recent," Fishlegs noted, "within the last week, even. I see scuff marks on the hull that aren't rock-caused either, and those rips in the sail aren't age. This damage was a dragon's doing."

::Looks like you get your wish too,:: Meatlug muttered to Toothless, who huffed in response (though he couldn't help but try and hide a hopeful grin). ::If anything's going to tell us where Viggo might be, it's a hunter's ship.::

"Okay folks, let's approach carefully," Hiccup directed as they landed nearby. "You didn't go inside it, did you Jake?"

"No; too busy dragging a furious Sliquifier past and didn't want t' stick my head in without backup," Jake snarked. "We still don't know if the dragon that did this might have taken up residence."

"Not reassuring Jake," Fishlegs complained, clutching his hammer a little tighter.

The snake snorted and leered back, "Wasn't meant t' be."

"So then we'll head in first," Hiccup quipped, nodding his head toward Toothless. "Come on bud, let's get this done."

Viking and Night Fury crawled up toward the sagging entrance to the ship's interior on the deck, and Hiccup pulled out Framherja, holding the bow at the ready in case anything jumped out at them. Toothless put his head in first, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and he glanced around neither seeing nor hearing anything alive within. However, as the wind shifted outside and air began flowing in through the broken hull toward them, he recoiled from the scent of something vile emanating from further within: death.

"There, uh, _was_ something alive in here at some point," he informed his rider, "but not anymore."

Hiccup nodded, stepping forward as Toothless reluctantly climbed inside, and he fought to keep his stomach from heaving when the same smell hit him. "Oh, ugh," he gagged, turning away and gesturing to the others outside. "Looks clear," he rasped, "but might want to cover your noses if you can." He gave an apologetic glance to the grimacing rattlesnake, but they all trudged in anyway. Hiccup and Toothless made their way immediately toward where the captain's quarters should have been, carefully sliding along the walls-turned floors toward the door hanging wide open, and as the outside light faded Toothless lit up his scales and Hiccup flicked on a flashlight to illuminate the space.

The room was trashed, most of the scrolls and maps that had been within cabinets on the walls now scattered all over the place, water-damaged and starting to rot, but the space was otherwise actually surprisingly bare; no boxes or crates were present, no tantalizing equipment lying around. Hiccup bit back a sigh and knelt down, starting to sort through the scraps of parchment to look for instructions or maps to work with.

"Let's see…can't read this one, can't read that one, this one's fallen apart already," he groused. "Ah, here we…shipment drop-off of iron ore, that doesn't help. Uh…dragon count, no visible mention of Night Furies or Silver Phantoms, damn. Grain ration, fruits, bundle of silk, spices…okay here's a map, maybe they've got something important marked here."

Hiccup unrolled it as best he could, wincing as the crinkly paper snapped in one corner in the process, and his eyes began roving the smudged marks of islands on the scroll. Most were starting to fade already from damage, but a route of intent was clearly marked between them. Unfortunately, each stop on it was already checked off, and the path led nowhere near where the Riders now were; it was an old map already used and ready to be thrown out.

"This might be a better one, Hiccup."

"Gaahhh! Geez, Fishlegs, you should wear a bell or something!"

The larger Viking gave a sheepish expression in his apology for his tendency to appear out of nowhere, and held out a scroll. "Sorry, you know I can't help it," he chuckled. "But, uh, Meatlug found this under one of the empty crates in the other space, so I think they had this out when whatever happened, happened."

Hiccup reached over and took the offered scroll, unrolling the parchment (far more easily than the other, he noticed, as it wasn't as age- or water-damaged) and reading over the letter it entailed. As he did, his eyes widened at the contents.

"Notice of imminent transport of Phantom hatchlings to main base," he described out loud, "and a report of lasting success on dragons turning savage, experiment areas with one hundred percent impact; well, if we had _any_ doubts that they're behind the dragons going feral then we just got our last affirmation. Fishlegs, keep looking for maps that can tell us where their base is. We need to find it; they probably have the Phantom hatchlings there already and Tsefan might be there as well."

"Not to mention maybe a counter or cure for whatever they're doing to all these other dragons," Fishlegs agreed, turning and carefully maneuvering his way to a fallen bookshelf in hopes of unearthing a proper map.

Scales sliding across wood drew them to a halt again though as they turned to see Jake at the doorway, a crumpled parchment carefully held between his teeth. He laid it down by Toothless, eyes dark.

"One of the former crew didn't make it off the ship," he explained, "so I found what was makin' the smell. It wasn't pretty, probably whatever dragon was what got him. Pretty certain that's the map we're lookin' fer though."

"Can't say I feel bad for them getting bit by their own project," Toothless spat, bending down to grab the parchment (and briefly pausing to calm his stomach as the smell of death rose off the permeated paper) and hand it to Hiccup. Hiccup paled from the scent as well, looking with raised brows at the two reptiles in question of how they could have ever put it in their mouth, but stomached it and unfolded the map to read.

The familiar outline of the Archipelago and Norwegian mainland appeared, with several islands marked by checks indicating something that the hunters had stopped to do, collect, or drop off, and notes for each. One of them was the island they were on if Fishlegs' calculations of distance were accurate (and no one needed question him on such things very often). Most importantly however, was the island that caught Hiccup's attention with the small, almost missed mark above it that just about matched the design of the Coalition insignia. And, it had been in line roughly with the not-quite-haphazard scattering of checkmarks snaking across the islands.

"I'd bet this was not a ship Viggo's men intended to lose," Hiccup mused, "especially if one of their own is dead on it and had this in his grip. That's probably the island we're looking for right there." He pointed at the faint mark, eyes setting in determination.

"And if we're wrong about that?" Jake queried critically.

"Well then, another island that we'll search just like all the others," Hiccup sighed, "but it's certainly a spot they have a strong interest in, otherwise it wouldn't have been marked with that label, however small or faint it is now. If Viggo isn't there, we'll probably at least find an outpost that we can spy through."

"It's definitely something we need to follow up on at least," Fishlegs agreed, looking around at the ship they were in. "If this vessel was headed back to base, it makes sense that right now it's mostly empty; the only thing I found in the crates still here were a few tools and some Dragon Nip bundles. This was built to be a cargo vessel, so they were heading back to stock up again."

"Then let's get back to camp and inform the others," Hiccup decided, folding up the map as best he could and standing up. "Certainly, I don't think I can stand being in here much longer; that smell is getting into everything."

At unanimous agreement, they all vacated the space, riders and snake climbing onto the dragons and taking to the air. Hiccup did not have Toothless immediately fly back however. Instead, they turned to face the ship leaning forlornly against the sandbar.

"Torch it bud," Hiccup said softly, and Toothless released a bolt that exploded within the ship, blowing it apart and setting even the damp wood alight. Flames coiled across the boards and crates, eating away at it bit by bit, until nothing but scraps of metal and charred timber remained. Only then did Viking and dragon turn away, leaving the unfortunate pyre to the elements as they took their first real lead in weeks back to the others.

* * *

 **A/N- Not the most exciting chapter, but most importantly: they have a lead. Oh, and a pair of awkward mammals are starting to get a little closer to having a much needed discussion...though no telling when it'll ever happen.**

 **Anyway, what did you think? Make sure to let me know in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	22. Chapter 21: Backstab, or Saving Grace?

**A/N- This story has finally exceeded 2,000 views! Rather slow compared to the other books, but I'm not too surprised; 7 stories can be a lot to get through and the first few weren't that great, I'll say myself.**

 **Anyway, quick warning: if you get squeamish easily from descriptions of bodily harm, you may wish to just skim the last scene in this chapter...**

* * *

Chapter 21

Backstab, or Saving Grace?

/

 _The thing to know of breaking rules_

 _Is sometimes it's not wrong_

 _When truth or opportunities are missed_

 _Crossing laws can be staying strong_

 _The world is a broken place_

 _Its orders pure nonsense_

 _So take care to read all fine print_

 _Even under the best pretense_

 _Understand the consequence though_

 _For nothing comes for free_

 _It might be right bearing a social wrong_

 _But be ready for the penalty_

 _-0-_

Shira's ears were up on full alert, swiveling back and forth as she sifted through the pile of projects in the corner of the basement. She knew she was lucky that neither of the dogs has deigned to follow her down the stairs, because if either Sam, Denise, or worst of all Zipeau showed up and the canines came bolting up the stairwell then they would immediately come investigating and find her downstairs looting through the Stenonychosaurus' tech. The little Night Fury did not have a good alibi at the ready for an explanation either, so that would be the end of her endeavor; saying she was curious about the little gadgets was out too, since she'd never cared at all before now.

The past several weeks had been harsh on the village, not physically but mentally, and that included the silver-streaked little dragon. With her parents still away with the Riders and consequently one of her brothers still missing, she was feeling restless and needing a way to help. Restlessness in a barely 2 year old dragon was a dangerous attribute.

The problem was, one young dragon who would be just as at risk of capture if she left the island, possibly even just the village, couldn't do much on her own, especially with the likes of Stoick and Valka usually watching her like hawks. The only reason Shira had been able to slip away this time to the Carlton household was that Lazuli and Tamaria had gotten into an argument over the state of their dinner (the both of them fought over who would get the better fish almost every night, but this time it had escalated more than usual) and provided a distraction for her "grandparents." Now though, she was praying she'd heard right when she eavesdropped on Zipeau and knew what to look for, otherwise her plan would fall apart before it even started.

Shira's visit with Dagur shortly after the Riders had left on the search had not turned out to be the last; what he'd said had rolled around in her mind for several consecutive nights, and after the first week had passed without any news from the search parties, Shira had lost patience and snuck in to talk with him again. Despite what everyone had told her about him, Shira found Dagur was being extremely cordial and honest with her. One of the traits she'd developed already was the discernment of people that even her parents were struggling with in some cases, so the former crazed chief's change of heart was palpable to her.

When she'd visited the second time, and he'd explained the plan that he had to her, not only did it provide Shira a way to help like she so desperately wanted to, but his own desperate pleading to prove his intentions had struck something, and drew her to overlook the risk that this was taking in helping him get out of the prison. A risk it certainly was though on the chance that Dagur was merely stringing her along, as he would be out, with whatever knowledge he had to pass along to Viggo, and with equipment to help him evade them from there on out.

That nagging sliver of doubt also continued to bang around the back of Shira's mind as she nudged aside a series of half-built communications wiring systems, but the need to push forward a chance to find her brother outweighed that concern heavily. Shaking her head, Shira focused on the devices she'd unburied from the clutter: some of the latest radios Zipeau had built, transmission devices already set with solar power cells and on a signal the Stenonychosaurus intended to be transmissible over several thousand-plus mile distances without use of satellites. The version the Riders had already were supposed to be usable for only a minute or two before dying thanks to the energy demands of keeping the signal steady over half the world, but Zipeau had been working tirelessly since they had left to make them last longer and more efficient.

A thump upstairs made Shira jump, before realizing it was probably just one of the dogs. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she grabbed the best looking radio carefully between her gums and dashed for the stairs. Her ears swiveled back and forth at hyper speed as she reassured herself no one else was in the house yet, and then she dashed up the stairwell and pushed open the back door, sliding it shut with her tail and gliding from the deck to the portal.

Then as she stepped through, Shira spotted the teal and gold dinosaur approaching from the edge of the cove, heading straight in her direction.

 _Of all the lousy times…!_

Panic immediately ran through her, ears standing up straight as she froze, before she realized that Zipeau was looking down at a slip of paper in his hands, not her. He was completely unaware in fact that she was there. Carefully, the Night Fury dashed off to the side, silent save for her tail brushing against the thick branches of the trees bordering the portal clearing. She didn't stick around long enough to notice however, disappearing into the forest

Zipeau's head snapped up, glancing to where the branches were now quivering from the touch, before he looked up to where the portal guards were supposed to be. ::Phil? You see anything just now?:: the dinosaur asked.

The white Terror popped his head out of his usual pine, glancing around with confusion before shaking his head. ::Right now? No; might have been water off the branches. It did rain earlier. Though I had thought I had seen Shira come by this way earlier this evening,:: he admitted. ::Not sure if she went through the portal though; maybe she was looking for you?::

::Yeah, it was her,:: Phil's coppery sister Terra chirped, showing up on the other side of the clearing. ::She just came out of there, and I'd say she wasn't hoping to see you. Know any reasons why she's over there, but avoiding you?::

Zipeau frowned, shaking his head and looking at the portal. ::I'm not sure,:: he muttered, ::but I dare say I'll have to look into it.::

* * *

Dagur was leaning against the cold stone, eyes closed in a semi-meditative state. Stuck underground for years, he had found several ways to pass the time in the absence of tools, toys, or technology (not that he would have understood the tech the Berkians now used on a daily basis; in that manner he was still your standard Viking through and through after all, more willing to bash something in half than learn the finesse of electronics), and meditating was one. For everyone around him though, they had found it exasperating as it gave the Berserker time to think. But, while the first plans and notions he'd come up with had not been pleasant ones, as weeks turned into months and months then turned to years, Dagur's slow realization at just how messed up he'd permitted his life to become had morphed his schemes instead into ideas on how he could prove he was sorry.

Not that anyone believed him still, of course, and he didn't blame them (after the things he'd attempted, he didn't expect anyone to actually listen, especially after Heather's adopted status became known and her hate for him had spiked to violent levels). It didn't help that a lot of his ideas were still in the category of "harebrained and ridiculous" too.

Now, though, there was actually a chance. Dagur hated to admit that he was having to exploit the eager personality of the little silver-striped Night Fury that had snuck in to talk to him several times, but if the end result panned out with his change of heart being proven, then it might be worth it. He only hoped that he would succeed, and that Heather would see fit to forgive him; with his father gone and his mother passed years ago, his sister was the only family Dagur actually had left.

There was one other detail about this plan that Dagur did not like: to get himself into a position to help, it would first require making it look like all the beliefs that the Hooligans held about him were entirely true still, and that was going to be difficult to pull off without ending up in another, much sparser cell (or dead). It wasn't the first time the thought occurred to him as he sat there, meditating and waiting, and a scowl flitted across his face before Dagur's eyes blinked open at the faint sound of a metal-hinged door creaking open slightly, far softer than any of the guards would permit as they passed through it.

Sure enough, a few seconds later a now familiar silver-slashed, scaly head peeked around the corner, the antenna of a radio sticking out of the side of her mouth.

"Shira! I was wondering when you'd manage to make it back!" Dagur greeted enthusiastically, if quietly; they didn't want to get caught after all. He got up from where he sat and walked over to the front of his cell with a smile on his face. "You get the radio then?"

Shira spat the device out at his feet and grimaced. "Plastic and metal taste vile," she muttered, before looking up at the Berserker, "but yeah, got one of the new versions. Should already be set on the right channel, and to turn it on I think you flip the little switch on the top. Button to speak into it is on the side." She paused, and her expression turned cautious as she glanced over her shoulder. "You…you are actually planning to look for my brother, right?" she asked timidly.

Dagur felt a pang at the distrust she still expressed despite having helped, but at this point it only joined the dull ache from all the rest of the looks and remarks everyone threw his way. He chuckled softly and knelt down, picking up the radio (and doing his best to ignore the dragon spit on the bottom, sticky and oily as it was). "As best I can," he replied. "Though that means I have to put on a convincing act for the hunters so that they're willing to work with me. It might take a little while, but you _can_ trust me, okay? After all, if I just wanted to get out of here I already would have." With a grin and a flourish, he brought his hand out from behind his back, revealing a dangling key in his grip. "Bucket's always been a bit lackadaisical in his perceptions. I've had this for days now."

Shira deflated in embarrassed relief, letting out a laugh of her own. "Yeah, I always wondered why they put him on prison guard duty. Is…do you need anything else for this?"

"Just a ship, Shira, but I'll take care of that myself," Dagur replied, crouching down so he was level with the Night Fury's gaze. "You'd better get moving through; no good if they figure out right away who was helping me. You'll get in a heap of trouble if and when they do figure it out as is."

Shira nodded, sending him one last tentatively thankful glance before running for the exit, taking care to avoid being spotted by whoever was at the entrance as a guard as she slipped into the night.

Dagur sighed, before he turned to tuck the radio out of sight –after wiping it off, of course- in his shirt and walked over to his given bed (one that was, admittedly, far more comfortable than what had been in the cell he'd been stuck in until only a few weeks ago; he'd miss this one thing from here). Reaching under the mattress, he pulled out an envelope he had managed to convince the chief to let him have and set it on the little stand next to the bed. It was now addressed back to Stoick alone, and in a few minutes after Dagur waited for Shira to get far enough away, it would be his last message left behind to try and explain to the man what was going on. Lord knows no one else would listen at all, but hopefully an earnest letter to the chief himself would see something done right.

* * *

Shira kept to the bordering treeline as she raced to the Haddock household; that she was out and about after dark now (or what passed for dark this far north in summer) meant that when –more likely than if- she was caught, she would be interrogated by Stoick, Valka, and their dragons about what she was doing about so late, and without permission. Luckily, she at least had an excuse, or actually multiple considering the argument her siblings had been in.

All the lights were on when she arrived, and Shira flew as quietly as she could up to the tom window on Hiccup and Astrid's side of the complex, alighting on the edge of the open windowsill and peeking her head in. Surprisingly, the room seemed empty. Her siblings weren't present on their beds yet, and the rest of the present family didn't seem to be waiting for her. Better reassured, she climbed in and landed softly on the floor, turning to head toward her own bed with the intention of sleeping the whole night away.

Halfway across the room a long, blue-hued tail appeared out of nowhere and wrapped powerfully around Shira's midsection. The Night Fury yelped in shock as she was dragged backward, before the owner of the tail appeared from underneath the nearby furniture.

 _Right,_ she remembered a few seconds too late, _there's a big empty space underneath Hiccup and Astrid's bed._

The Thunderdrum turned her to face him, a disappointed and expectant expression stating with all clarity that he was waiting for an explanation. Shira knew, too, that she wasn't going to be let go until she gave one.

::He-hey, Thornado,:: she chirped weakly, dangling off of the floor. ::Wasn't expecting you in here.::

::That's quite obvious,:: Thornado responded. ::You can tell everyone where you were without supervision this late at night.:: With that, he turned and trundled out the door and down the stairway toward the main living area with Shira in tow, and dropped her unceremoniously in front of the other three adults in the house: Cloudjumper, Stoick, and Valka. Not a one of them had friendly expressions on. Out of the corner of her eye Shira also noticed her three present siblings curled up by the cooking fire, worried eyes all trained on her. It didn't help the feeling she had now gurgling in her stomach.

"If ye thought we wouldn't notice yer disappearance, then you'd better think twice," Stoick quipped, arms crossed. "Do you want te risk getting hurt or captured and your parents coming back here t' find out they lost another child, Shira? I know we have riders on patrol at all times now but no one's perfect and things can happen. Where were you?"

The little dragon didn't answer right away, choosing instead to stare at the floor underneath all the gazes bearing down on her. This of course only further angered Stoick. "Do not make me repeat myself," he growled, "or I will ground you here and now, locked up with nothing to do! I will not lose another one of you on my watch!"

"I was by the cove, okay!" Shira snapped finally, her head twisting to glare up at Stoick. "I couldn't stand listening to Laz and Tammy bicker over their fish again and I wanted to think of something I could do to help find Tsefan, so I wanted some quiet and alone time! Zipeau and some of the riders go by the cove all the time, so there's nothing going to bother me out there; I'm safe!"

"If ye want time te think and you really believe it would help, then you could at least tell us!" Stoick countered, putting his hands on his hips. "You've made a habit over the past few weeks o' randomly disappearing and nobody knows where you go when you do. That's too much risk!"

"But if I told you I wanted to go somewhere you either wouldn't let me or you'd send someone with, and that doesn't help!" Shira seethed back. "I can't think with Cloudjumper or Scarlet or whoever sitting over my shoulder the whole time! That's why I just leave!"

Stoick opened his mouth to retort, but for a moment he didn't quite have a reply ready. With the pause in the argument Valka stepped in, holding up a hand to quiet her husband and kneeling down to sit level with Shira.

"It's alright te want some alone time, time to think on occasion Shira," she said, reaching out to place a hand on the Night Fury's head, "but this is not a period of peace where we can freely hide about the island either. So, there are precautions we have te take. Berk is mostly safe, save for natural dangers which is why we always worry about the dragons as young as you are, but I, personally, at least ask that ye tell us when you're going to leave somewhere and where you're going just so we know where to look if we have to. I know Stoick is wantin' to insist you're accompanied everywhere," and she gave a sidelong look at her husband as she said this, which he returned with an exasperated huff, "but I know well how much we each need our own time too. You all especially, since this is your brother we're in a worry over. We just need t' make sure you're protected while ye think."

Shira let out a shuddering sigh, trying to keep away tears. Valka had a way with dragons much as her son did, and young Night Furies were obviously little exception. She let herself lean into Valka's hand though, before curling up next to the woman altogether and taking Valka's reassuring embrace as it was meant to be: a peace offering. "Hasn't helped anyway," she muttered dejectedly. "I don't have anything to offer; I can't leave the island, so I can't actually do anything."

"That you're trying is help enough young one," Valka reassured, glancing back to Stoick in a silent demand that he sit down and put a kind hand on the dragon as well. She smiled when he relented and settled next to her, draping his own arm over Shira's back. "Keep thinking," Valka continued, "and praying; thoughts help more than you know. And if you have any ideas come to you that we can use, let us know. Just do it safely, alright?"

"Okay," Shira agreed half-heartedly, before lifting up her head with an uncertain gaze. "Am I still in trouble?"

Both Vikings couldn't help but stifle giggles at the impeccably child-only nature of that question, the nearly innocent manner of how it was asked releasing a fair amount of the tension in the air. "Tell ya what," Stoick said, ruffling the Night Fury's ears, "if ye promise that ye won't run out anywhere tonight again, and you'll tell us where you're going from now on, we'll forget about this."

"Okay."

"And, I'm going to let you deal with complainin' about your siblings arguing on yer own. They don't seem too happy about that accusation."

All eyes turned to the three other Furies in the room, most particularly the blue and violet-tinged two who were crouching to the ground in pounce mode, both with matching grins.

Shira's eyes widened, and she backed up as Stoick and Valka scooted out of the line of fire and toward their own chuckling dragons. "But it's true!" the silvery dragon whined. "You guys never stop arguing over the fish! It's all just fish, come on!" She turned to bolt away, but only got as far as the entrance to the dragons' commons area before her siblings tackled her with vengeful giggles.

* * *

Dagur had waited until he was certain it was late enough that most of the village would be asleep, and if he couldn't avoid the guard then a quick scuffle wasn't guaranteed to bring all of Berk running immediately. When he heard nothing else within the complex to suggest villager activity, the Berserker quietly got up off his mattress, moving around the room to gather the few objects he had been able to acquire freely and/or hide away in the past few weeks in preparation: dried foods, small pilfered tools, and of course the radio that Shira had nabbed for him that evening, all packed in a small over-the-shoulder bag that he carefully secured to himself. Then, he pulled out the borrowed key (he wouldn't be taking this with him, as it wasn't likely to be useful elsewhere) and leaned one arm out through the bars of his cell, inserting it into the lock and turning it with a small amount of difficulty thanks to the awkward angle.

A satisfying click echoed through the empty corridor, followed by a far more displeasing squeal of un-oiled metal as Dagur turned the handle and swung the cell door inward. He winced at the grating sound and paused, expecting someone to come investigating, but shockingly nobody approached. Letting out a sigh of relief, he slipped out the cell door, closing it with slightly less noise and locking it again, and then looked back into it with only slight satisfaction at the lumps under the blanket made by the small pillows he'd been allowed. At least so long as no one looked too closely, they wouldn't suspect much for a bit. However, Dagur was certain that it barely looked like him in that bed; it was just too small.

No time to dwell on that though he reasoned, turning away and dashing as quickly and softly as he could up the corridor. The main jail door was unsurprisingly also closed, and Dagur glanced out the small window in it to try and spot the current guard. Nothing showed immediately, so he cautiously eased the door open and stuck his head out to look further around.

It was Sornjar, leaning against a nearby shack and watching something off in the distance. Torches and lamps lit up most of the area, setting Dagur's nerves on edge, but if he managed to slip off to the side without being spotted and get into the shadows, he would probably be able to make it away home free. The chances though, they weren't looking great, and he was only lucky that he was currently sitting in a shadow cast by the door at the moment. Carefully, he stepped out and closed the door again, standing flush with it to sit in the shaded angle as much as possible, waiting for a hopefully better opportunity to bolt.

A couple of minutes passed by, the Berserker holding his breath (as best as he could without passing out, at least), before Sornjar shifted his gaze off to the side, further away from him, and pushed away from the shack as he started walking toward the far side of the hill underneath which the prison sat. Dagur took the chance immediately, dashing the other way across the lit front path of the jailhouse and into the shadows beyond. Once there, he ducked behind the tanner's storehouse and flattened himself against the wall, holding his breath again (this time both to hear if he was being pursued and to try and avoid breathing in the stench of a tanner's chemicals; that was never a pleasing odor, to anyone). No one approached, and he let out a sigh of relief followed by a harsh gag and took several steps to distance himself from the storehouse. Then he darted down the nearest side path along the village, heading for the docks.

Even at night, Berk was not entirely silent and inactive, and Dagur found himself more than once ducking between houses, stables, and storehouses as the occasional late-night stroller or ambling dragon passed nearby, though they rarely paused long enough to give him severe concerns about his discovery. He had feared that one of the reptiles would recognize his scent, or at least notice that an unfamiliar one was running through the village, but his rapid passing and the dozens of other people in the village appeared to be helping avoid that risk for now. The longer he stayed here however, the greater that risk was going to become, and so as the next unwelcome Zippleback disappeared from sight he left his newest alcove and slipped down the hill, passing by the shipyard and associated houses as he made for the path to the docks below.

Rounding a corner just above the walkways however, a voice that he definitely did not want to hear brought him skidding to a halt with wide, panicked eyes.

"Debbie!" Ruffnut's call came wafting up the path, and the pitter patter of a set of small feet approached Dagur's direction, clearly the boots of someone very, very young. Thinking quickly, he jumped to the side and pressed up against the shadowed side of a toolshed, hoping that the little girl Ruff was tailing would just pass by quickly and be on her way with mother in tow.

 _What the hell are they doing out at this time of night anyway?!_

He should have expected that not everything would go as he hoped. Little Deborah Ingerman trotted by without a care in the world, before she paused and turned to stare at Dagur with a gaze that spoke clearly and without any room for doubt: she saw him. As if needing more confirmation was necessary, she pointed at him and asked, "Who you? You look funny."

Dagur did not answer, silently praying that if he didn't move Debbie would lose interest in the stranger and leave.

"Debbie! Don't run away from Mommy like that!" Ruffnut called again, appearing within Dagur's field of vision with an exasperated expression. "We can't do night walks if you keep running off. Come on, time for bed. What are you looking…?"

She had knelt down to scoop her daughter up, before following Debbie's gaze with curiosity. Ruff's words trailed off as soon as she locked eyes with Dagur's panicked expression, and she stood up abruptly with her daughter in her arms and prepared to yell out a warning to the village concerning their escaped prisoner.

"Ruffnut, wait!" Dagur exclaimed desperately, waving his hands forward. "You…you are Ruffnut, right?"

Ruff paused, most likely in annoyance at her once again being confused with her brother, and looked at the Berserker suspiciously. But, it was enough for Dagur to step forward and continue.

"I know none of you trust me, okay, but please just hear me out this once," he urged. "All your friends have been gone for weeks looking for the missing Night Fury, but without some inside information they'll never locate him any time soon, even with Eret's knowledge of Viggo's system to help. The hunters have too many hiding places and have been at this game for decades, at least. If I get off of Berk without everyone knowing about it immediately, it will help make it look like I actually escaped just to get away, and I was trusted by Viggo once so I might be able to get on his good side again. I can find out where they're hiding the dragon and lead you guys right to him without sending up a bunch of red flags to the Grimborns and their men."

Ruffnut's expression did not change a whit. If anything, her eyes narrowed further and she held Debbie tighter to her. "You're right," she said, "I don't believe or trust you. You tried helping that nutcase Malin take us out."

"Ruff, please believe me when I say I've changed," Dagur insisted. "It's the one thing I've been trying to stress for two years now. I've got no one left except Heather and she hates me; if this helps me convince her I'm not that power-crazed idiot I once was, then I'll do whatever it takes to help you find Tsefan even just so I can get her to feel something else around me. And if I were just trying to get away from you people I would have knocked you out already and left instead of trying to talk. I won't hit a little girl though, not now, not when I'm trying to prove I've changed, and I don't want to take on her mother either to that end."

"And how do I know you're not just yankin' on my braids?" Ruff quipped. "Keep me from raising the alarm like I would after I wake up again and getting you caught just out to sea?"

"If I'm lying and you guys catch me out there trying to schmooze with Viggo, I'll write you a sworn oath," Dagur promised. "You can punch me square in the face when I'm dragged back in that case, and I won't fight it, at all. Do, uh, do you have a parchment, perhaps?"

The silence was palpable, but soon Ruff sighed and relented, shifting Debbie to grab a notepad off her belt (a habit picked up from her husband). If she got to punch Dagur full in the mouth if they ended up dragging him back after lying to her, maybe it'd be worth it. Vikings couldn't break signed contracts without severe repercussions, after all.

"You're lucky my husband's rubbed off on me," she huffed as she handed the pad over, followed by a modern pen. "Otherwise, you'd have nothing to write with and I'd get the joy of beating your rear back to the cells right now."

Dagur gave a tired laugh, before looking at the pen in confusion.

"You click the end, dunce," Ruffnut drawled scathingly, watching with passive disinterest as Dagur did so before he scrawled his message in runes against the side of the shed. Then he handed the paper pad back to Ruff with his signature on it, and Ruff looked it over with greater intrigue; for once, she was glad she'd learned to read.

 _I hereby swear on penalty of death that I am leaving to assist the Hooligans in finding their lost Night Fury,_ the note read. _If I lie of this intent and am caught, Ruffnut is given free permission to hit me as hard as she chooses before I am locked away –or whatever punishment is deemed- again. Signed, Dagur Laeborn, Chief of the Berserkers._

"Alright Dagur," Ruff said darkly, folding up the paper as best she could with one hand and tucking it away. "I'll listen, this once, if you tell me how you plan to let us know where Tsefan is. Viggo's gonna read every letter you try to send out, so if that's your plan it's gonna get kicked between the legs before it starts."

"Not using paper or anything he can steal," Dagur said. "I've got a radio, and I'll call you guys directly. I know that dinosaur always has one on somewhere, so as soon as I find something I should be able to tell you, right?"

And there it was: that he had a radio meant Ruff might take the notion he'd do the same thing as Tefari had, feed information to the hunters instead. At this point she could throw away all of Dagur's progress and call for someone to grab him and take him back to the prison (where he most definitely would not regain his better-furnished cell), especially since Dagur would hold by what he said, even if it got him caught: he wasn't going to hit her to get away, not while Deborah was still in her arms at the least. If it all went south now, he wanted at least that one thing to show he was trying to change.

Much to his relief, Ruffnut sighed and gestured down to the docks. "There's a one-man navigable boat on the third mooring from the western end of the docks," she said. "It's old, but still works fine. But, I'm letting the others know what you're supposedly planning when they next get back, so you can't run forever if you try to turn this on us at any point."

Her warning was spoken clearly and without room to argue, and then the blonde Viking turned and stalked off toward her nearby home, Debbie peeking over her shoulder back at Dagur and asking with classic childish curiosity, "Who's funny looking man?" Ruff's answer was not heard as she left Dagur's hearing range, though the Berserker decided he'd take that as a blessing, knowing the twin.

Dagur gave a sigh of his own in relief, slumping against the shed, before picking himself up and dashing for the docks. He had to make sure to get far enough away from Berk that when the inevitable discovery of his disappearance was found in the cells the next morning at breakfast, they wouldn't be able to hunt him down just within a couple hours. He had to reach a trading port where he could find members of the Coalition before anyone of Berk caught up with him, and then convince the hunters to take him to Viggo.

Traveling that quick meant no rest that night too, and as he located the small vessel Ruff had mentioned, Dagur thanked whoever might have been listening (much as he'd heard and seen, he wasn't quite ready to jump on board with what most of Berk now believed just yet) that he at least had a clear sky to navigate by that night. The day's storm system had passed much earlier, and stars were twinkling brightly alongside a crescent moon. The sail was thrown up rapidly, rudder set in place, and the mooring lines cast off within minutes, and then Dagur was off, taking the wind and currents to his best advantage. As he cut across the waves he looked back to Berk slowly receding behind him, before taking a steadying breath and focusing stern eyes forward.

"If this is what it takes, Heather," he said quietly, "then I'll even bring down Viggo myself. I want to change, and I'll prove it."

* * *

Great mounds of paper littered Viggo's desk in various heights, the parchment accompanied by near-silent writing and shuffling of sheets. Were one not familiar with the man at the desk, he could have been mistaken for any regular accountant keeping stock of inventory and funds. Of course, even black market traders needed to keep accounts of their business and material availability somehow, and as one of the few people in his organization who actually knew about all of what was going on, it typically fell to Viggo himself to track everything (better too, he thought, to ensure none of his less-able men messed things up).

He had started off truly hating paperwork, preferring hands-on activities and being out and about on the hunt or bargaining trades and sales with the various peoples of the world. As time passed though, the accounting had become Viggo's personal time to think, or relax and forget the physical stresses of his job for a time. While you were crunching numbers and checking invoices, you had little room to think about frustrating hindrances to progress beyond effects to individual orders. However, though he had warned everyone that this was a time for him not to be bothered, every now and then emergencies came up, or urgent news had to reach him immediately. Thus came headaches like the presently approaching one.

A knock, attempting polite but audibly rushed, came to the door, and Viggo released a tempered sigh as he set his pencil aside.

"Enter."

The heavy wood rectangle swung slowly inward, revealing what under most conditions was an intimidating and experienced Viking hunter. Now though, he looked like a cowardly child ready to bolt because he'd done something wrong and got caught in the act by his mother. He would never show it, but Viggo very much enjoyed having that sort of influence over his men. After a few moments of leaving the man fidgeting in the doorway, Viggo relaxed his gaze and let a more cordial smile grace his expression to calm the messenger.

"Ah, Henderson. Please, come in and take a seat." Gesturing to the chair setting somewhat on the other side of his desk, Viggo waited as Henderson approached and carefully sat down, still twitching somewhat from his nerves, before continuing. "So, what did everyone else vote you in to speak to me about?"

Henderson blinked, before deflating somewhat. Of course the head of the Coalition knew how his men decided who to send in, however undignified it was. "I, uh…I bring messages from our further contacts," he said, hesitantly pulling both official letters and hastily scribbled notes on parchment out of a pocket on his vest. "There's both good news and bad news sir, much of it urgent, which is why the receivers, uh…they insisted I bring them to ye immediately."

 _And they were possibly hoping for a show, I'm sure,_ Viggo mused to himself. He nodded, his expression not changing but his mood souring a little more. No doubt the unpleasant information was more of the "indirect" meddling of the Riders as they searched for their precious little dragon. "Alright," he sighed, "what's the bad news first?"

"The word of a bounty spread amongst civilians and mercenaries to the south did nae have much effect," Henderson answered. "The group the Hooligans sent there may actually be tracking the Sahara base. We don't know how successful they'll be. Also, so far in th' east they've failed to get the tensions we wanted between the demigoddess and the group the Berkians sent there. Mononoke's stayin' amiable with them, but our men there are preparing to try and remedy that. And, uh, Hiccup and his posse are starting te head this way; sightings suggest at best they're only a day or two away from us. Some of the men here want t' know if we should start storing the goods and preparing a defense."

Henderson had been right: none of that was pleasant news whatsoever. It could have been worse of course (none of the Rider groups had gone anywhere near where the Night Fury was actually being hidden), but Viggo had been hoping there would have been more obstacles to slow them down so that he would be able to implement the next phase before they got close enough to pick out clues. Granted, there was only one search party he knew among them that had members capable of recognizing what he was using to prepare his world war (unless the man who claimed to be Loki Asgard was actually who he said; if that were the case and they had actually been around hundreds of years ago, there was a chance he knew what the flowers at the base were), but any risk of ruined supplies set back his chances even further. He had to hope his insurance contingent worked.

"And the good news?" he asked tiredly.

Henderson shifted in his seat, putting the scribbled notes on the top of the stack he held. "We received a messenger bird from the traders of Calormen," he said, handing over one of the letters underneath.

Viggo's eyes widened with greater interest, and he reached forward rapidly for it, unfolding the sheet. As he read it over, parts of him heaved a relieved sigh; there it was, his contingent in place. "They actually managed to get rid of the stockpile," he said with intrigue. "Good. Now, never mind the bounty; I knew it wouldn't actually end with any of the Riders captured or dead, unfortunately, but it had promises of slowing them down. Even if they find the base and get in, they can't do anything to the supplies without further risking their little dragon. Send word back to the Sahara base to tell them to hide away the last shipment from the Calormenes if they can before the Riders get there, but otherwise it's not much issue now."

He stood up and headed for the door, Henderson wisely following. Paperwork could be finished later, but right then he had a few items to gather. After all, a good host never lets guests leave without a gift.

Henderson watched him start to open the door, before cautiously asking, "Uh, and is there an instruction for the base here? If the Riders show, I mean?"

Viggo paused, before looking almost impassively back toward Henderson. "Search to ensure that any and all maps or letters that might lend word about the Night Fury's whereabouts are either hidden or destroyed," he ordered. "Otherwise, let them come; I have something to give them actually." He reached down and pulled a small, dark and bloodied scale from his pocket. It had arrived only a few days ago, a rather serendipitous timing in his mind. "Oh, and send a notice to Darian: the Riders don't quite yet appear to have gotten the message properly, so we might wish to prepare the next gift as well for them. And see if someone can find Trader Johann, the blasted storyteller; we'll have him deliver it when it gets here too."

The code that tapped itself out across the relay made Darian's eyes sparkle in sadistic delight. It had been a quiet couple of weeks since the last event, little more than a few trading caravans to converse with as they headed for the Black Sea across the mountains. Otherwise, he and the others assigned to the mountain outpost had mostly kept busy playing cards amongst themselves and making sure that the Night Fury didn't die of dehydration or starvation (though at times it seemed like the little monster was intent on trying anyway, forcing them to drug and then force-feed him what he needed), along with keeping the reptiles they used for pack animals in proper condition.

* * *

The message had barely finished dotting itself across the page before Darian jumped off his seat at the desk. A short walk down the tunnel outside brought him to another door which he unlocked and entered, skirting around the room as he picked up various instruments (some meant for his gruesome enjoyment, others modified to fit the purpose requested) before he exited the space and headed down the dim corridor again toward the captive's room.

Tsefan himself had been finding his mind slipping toward dark places more and more often as time slithered by. He knew his family was searching for him still, and that they would never give up willingly, but weeks were preparing to turn over into months, and his faith in them actually managing to find this hellhole buried below a mountain range was dwindling.

The first scale that had been ripped off his side had only just managed to start healing, replacing the scab, but the ache was still there, a constant reminder of his purpose to his captors. Tsefan knew all too well he was a bargaining chip only, one that could be twisted until he screamed in order to keep his family away, and that meant his being here was a risk to every other dragon and dragon-loving person out there.

It was not his fault of course, but that knowledge was a painful weight on Tsefan's young head. Not for the first time, he contemplated not how he would escape (already he'd made several attempts, but his chains were not malleable under even his searing flames, not to the extent where he had any fire left after breaking one to continue with the rest, never mind his cage; this was also if he managed to actually pull off the well-secured muzzle strap to do any more than sear his gums with fire), but how he could leave this world. He would no longer be the blocking point to ending Viggo's games, no longer the reason the world might come to hate dragons altogether again, no longer a binding burden to his family to find him before finishing the fight. But it would tear his family apart too, and the hunters ensured that he could not starve himself, so he saw no way out.

The door to his cell room slammed open, and an icy dread sent shudders through Tsefan's body when he saw who walked through, and what he was carrying.

The look the little dragon sent him only made Darian more gleeful of the prospect however, and he shuffled even faster to the nearby table. "Afternoon you little bastard," he called faux-cheerfully, unloading his tools. "I see we're uncomfortable as usual; don't worry, I'm only here to help make it worse."

An involuntary whimper escaped Tsefan's throat, making Darian laugh as he turned around to face him, holding that vile trident up as well as a very, very sharp looking long knife edged in vicious serration.

"Oh yes," the man cackled. "You see, your 'family' still doesn't seem to quite understand the ultimatum Viggo gave them: stop interfering, or we'll hurt _you_. So, I was told to use my imagination for the next message. Let's get started, shall we?"

The door of his cage was unlatched and flung open with a bang, and Tsefan cowered against the far wall of his tiny confinement. Not that it did any good, as the trident reached in and its curved tips caught his neck, forcing him out lest they dug through his scales and sliced his ears in half. As soon as he was out, Darian applied pressure, forcing Tsefan against the floor as he put a heavy boot on the dragon's back. Knowing what was coming, Tsefan only closed his eyes, not wanting to see it approach.

"I recall once hearing a story about a Berkian teen who shot down a Night Fury, ripping off its tailfin," Darian drawled, flipping the blade in his hand into the air and catching it again. "He made a new one, because he was told that a downed dragon was certain death, eventually. 'Course he didn't have to worry about that forever, since your abomination of an 'uncle' came along and fixed it up, but I hear it cost him a lot to do so. How much harder then, I wonder, would it be to repair the loss of two fins? What about three?"

He knew it would come at any moment, but Tsefan couldn't help his attempted thrashing when the bite of the blade met with the edge of his right secondary wing, or the screaming roar that tried to escape his muzzled snout in tandem. The pain only grew as the cut deepened, muscle and bones severing under a hideous sawing motion he could feel every swipe of until soon there was nothing left on his side but a bloody, jagged gash. The tears were already escaping his eyes from the pain, and the knowledge that he would never fly again, but Darian had only begun.

Moments later, renewed agony electrified Tsefan's entire spine and stars exploded in his eyes as the already bloodied knife speared the end of his tail. It sawed down, slicing vertebrae and rendering all feeling of his tailfins gone in an instant, but not the pain. No, that only grew as the cut deepened still until, with a heave that brought what little he had been given to eat back into the Night Fury's mouth with acidic vileness, Tsefan's mind gave out, sending him at least temporarily into a pain-deadened black void of unconsciousness.

* * *

 **A/N-Poor Tsefan...sorry to say he's not getting a break just yet either.**

 **Anyway, as always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	23. Chapter 22: Deception's Devastation

**A/N- Hey all, just a notice that due to my attempts to also keep up with my other current story (as well as be able to manage either one as school starts up again), chapters will be going out closer to an average of once a month. I hope you'll continue to stick with me though, as we're approaching the first climax, and tensions are starting to break...**

* * *

Chapter 22

Deception's Devastation

/

 _The bell was rung_

 _The match declared_

 _Opponents pitted forth_

 _Blows and blocks were traded hence_

 _The bruises born and earned_

 _But this battle was not between two sides_

 _That truly stood as foes_

 _The trickster stood aside and watched_

 _As what he'd earned brought others low_

 _That uppercut that sliced the air_

 _It should have smacked him down_

 _Instead it curved and met the face_

 _Of the other entangled there_

 _Hatred brewed between the fighters_

 _Their eyes burned the other's skin_

 _And all the while the trickster laughed_

 _As nearby he untouched stood_

 _-0-_

Nearly ten minutes was the time that passed between my taking leave to get the four of us back to the Alagaesian village and our reaching of the valley, but it still was far too long a trip. As we'd soon learn however, it wouldn't have mattered which method I used to arrive, as the result would have been the same. As we crested the final hill, I slowed as I spotted the crowd by the lake shore, all faces turned toward one spot and an almost tangible cloud hanging above them.

Something was very, very wrong.

I spotted Caelia moments later, the sleek dragon laying as if she'd collapsed by the lake next to Snotlout and Fireworm. Her eyes were closed, even at this distance I could see moisture around them, and were it not for heaving breaths one might have mistaken her as dead. I didn't even have to get close enough to ask what had happened; with that sign, I already knew.

Snotlout and Fireworm looked up first when we materialized out of the shadows by the shoreline, and their forlorn gazes met mine as I demorphed and marched forward, hoping against hope that I was only seeing the reaction to their feared expectations rather than reality.

"It's too late," Snotlout said quietly, and I skidded to a halt at his words. Turns out, thinking you knew what happened and hearing someone else confirm it were two very different things, and it hurt. Actual tears were building in his eyes, one of the few times I had ever seen the brazen man cry openly. "We'd barely even gotten over the first peak," he continued, even his voice wavering. "He bled out before we could do anything at all. Jaetsu's dead."

The blunt statement hit like an anvil slamming to earth, and my gaze swept wordlessly toward where Caelia lay, surrounding a blanket upon which the rider had been solemnly placed and looking as broken-hearted as Toothless had when the Night Fury had believed he'd killed Stoick. This would not be an easy thing for her to pull through I knew as well; a bonded dragon was akin to already being on death's doorstep if they lost their rider in many cases, and those ties that the Alagaesians and Lungs shared were among the tightest of them all.

I stepped forward slowly, each foot on the ground feeling leaden, kneeling down and holding a hand out over Jaetsu, but it ended up only being yet another painful confirmation of what Snotlout had said. The man's body was already beginning to cool, I could pick up no hints of a heartbeat or the electric field living things always held, nothing. He had been gone already for too long for even defibrillation to have a breath's chance of bringing him back.

Perhaps it was involuntary, perhaps I wanted to make a statement, I wasn't sure, but when my eyes locked on the wound that had done the deed, my skin and clothes frosted over and the air around me dropped in temperature enough to make the breath of those nearest stand out. My eyes though, I knew they had gone black on their own.

"Who was it that did this?" I asked quietly, words barely audible but bearing the weight of mountains. My gaze drifted up toward Snotlout, Natasha, and now Peter and Elliot who had moved to stand next to them. Snotlout and Fireworm took a step back under the glare, and I didn't blame them, and even Peter flinched at my expression, but he was the one that dragged forward the man apparently in question as Snotlout cautiously held up the gun. There was no mistaking it: it was one of Ashira's weapons, as were the emblems on the clothing the man wore.

"They caught him in the attempt of shooting the rest of them," Peter explained, shoving him forward. "He also injured Caelia in the process. You still questioned why we suspected Mononoke or her allies of being behind this all somehow, attempting to darken the image we and our dragons have more than we've already suffered under. Do you wonder now?"

I looked back at Caelia, spotting the injury on her neck and waving my hand to heal the gash (though I knew if they were to ever bring her back to health it would be weeks of fighting the depression). Then my eyes locked on the guilty party. He was still attempting to remain impassive and uncaring, but with one look at me, I could already see the mask cracking as a dawning realization and discomfort appeared. I reached forward faster than he could blink let alone avoid and grabbed the front of his vest, pulling him forward so he was nose to nose with me, and let the temperature around me drop further so that crystals of ice grew upon his skin to increase his discomfort. No doubt my gaze itself worsened it even more; long before I'd gained the morphing abilities my eyes would shift to brown or gray when I was severely angered, and after the change they usually turned red. Black, however, was not just anger, it was the edge of my limits altogether.

"What the HELL did you think this was going to get for you?!" I roared into his face, making him squeeze his eyes closed. "You've just killed an innocent man in cold blood, attempted to murder part of my family as well, for what? More shots at trying to shove these people away, make up some sort of twisted idea you bastards have on the perfect life, or more money?" My hand swept to the crowd beyond us, before clamping hard onto his vest again. "No; all you've just done is piss me off, and that was the _worst_ possible decision you could have made. Did Ashira have you do this, or Mononoke? Or was it your own idea?"

He stayed quiet, impressively, unwilling to say anything, but I saw something akin to a suppressed tell cross his face when I said Ashira's name. It was barely a twitch, but it was there.

That was all I needed. I had been suspicious of the woman since I had first seen her, and now it was all the more given ground. Her distrust of dragons apparently looked to run deeper than just superficial dislike, and she just might have sent one of her own to ambush us in hopes of driving us off. Her mistake.

Making up my mind on my next move, I turned and threw the man back to Peter's feet. "Catch up to me when you can, and bring him along," I growled, grabbing the gun out of Snotlout's hands. "You know where I'll be heading. Snotlout, get the others together, call Ember and let her know if you want. I am getting answers out of this mess _now_ , once and for all."

Natasha moved to say something, claws reaching out to stop me, but I had already turned away. Deep sapphire and white-streaked wings formed in place of my arms as I gripped the weapon with my claws, before I took to the air, electricity crackling wildly around me. The sun was beginning to set, but that didn't bother me; night would be my advantage in this.

* * *

Orha swerved sharply to avoid the snapping jaws of a Grapple Grounder as Ember lined up her shot, releasing the arrow almost point-blank before wincing when the dragon crashed into a field below, plowing up a sizeable furrow in the dirt.

 _At least it wasn't a planted stretch,_ she reasoned.

The swarm was dwindling as she and Amethyst took out the crazed dragons, the raptors below doing their job to keep the reptiles distracted from the village should they have gotten past the aerial defense. She was shocked though, that no one from the Alagaesian village had shown up at all to help, but on the other hand, if they were all busy dealing with Jaetsu before Hawken got there it might be a little while before they weren't distracted enough to send up assistance and a means to take care of the dragons below, who would otherwise awaken ready to terrorize again in a few hours at most.

The village seemed a little more on the prepared side at least, once the initial panic was over. Some of the men came rushing out of the houses below after everything and everyone else was as secure as possible, with chains in hand to bind the fallen dragons. A few had first approached brandishing swords, glaives, and other sharp implements to deal with them more permanently, but a warning from a pair of raptors bearing weapons far sharper had stayed them from carrying out the act. Ember was better assured now that this would end mostly bloodlessly at least.

Mostly, the term was stressed, as a Flame Whipper flashed by streaming explosive flames at Ember and Orha. Neither particularly cared, fireproof as both of them were, but the feral was past them and flying around to go after Amethyst before Ember could even look up to try for another shot.

"Okay, there are what, six dragons still in the air?" she tried counting as she nocked the next arrow. "We should be able to end this in the next ten minutes or so, right?"

"Hopefully sooner," Orha grunted. "These tight turns are getting exhausting."

Ember gave him a reassuring pat on the neck before setting her sights on the nearest Flame Whipper. The dragon wheeled in the air and turned after them, and she counted down until she was sure she wouldn't miss.

 _Three…two…one…_

TWAANNNGGG!

The arrow flew straight and struck home, embedding in the dragon's shoulder as Orha banked out of the way. A moment later the Flame Whipper seized up and fell to earth, impacting with a resounding thud and laying at the mercy of the chain-ready farmers below.

"One down, five to go," Ember mused, before watching an electro-stunned dragon fall from Amethyst's flight path, the Night Fury rushing by. "Never mind, four to go." She pulled out her next arrow, silently thanking Rachel down below for collecting the ones she'd already expended so they could be cleaned and reused later (as much Mysteel as they now had access to, such arrows were definitely not something they wanted to leave behind if it could be avoided). As the next Flame Whipper lined up in her sights however her com suddenly went off, distracting her from being able to make the next shot. She watched despondently as the dragon rocketed by, hoping Amethyst could catch it, before turning her attention fully to the message in her ears.

"Sorry to bother you if you're still dealing with ferals, Ember," Snotlout was saying, his tone coming across as disturbingly somber and further distracting the fire-haired woman, "but, uh…Jaetsu didn't make it."

"Oh no," Ember breathed, her mind running over the possible implications. The Alagaesians would be furious.

"Yeah," Snotlout continued. "But, uh, bigger problem maybe: Hawken's headed to Láng Chéng to find Ashira 'cause the perp has a gun and her people's clothes on, so you'd all better head there when you can. Peter just sent some guys out your way to take care of that mess. And, uh, hurry if you can, Hawken's in a really bad mood from this and, uh, Natasha thinks we're still missing something in this. The guy who shot Jaetsu doesn't really look like the rest of Mononoke or Ashira's men, and, well, we can't get him to talk yet."

"Got it Snotlout. We're gonna probably be out of here in a few minutes tops," Ember replied, turning to look at Amethyst as the connection ended. The Night Fury had been listening in as best she could as the conversation had been relayed from Ember's headset, and she nodded agreement.

"For once I agree with Snotlout," Amethyst yelled over, pausing to fire again at one of the remaining dragons before turning back to Ember. "I don't think Ashira would be dumb enough to send one of her men dressed like her people to shoot us. She would know that would tie straight back to her, and she knows we can't just be shot down like other dragons can."

"Believe me, I won't argue!" Ember called back, twisting as she fired another arrow and leaving only two straggling Flame Whippers left in the sky. "But we don't know if it might still be people among them driving this mess; we discussed before someone might be doing it under her nose. But we need to take care of these two quickly and get out of here before Hawken does something we'll all regret. You know as well as I do how he gets when he finally snaps!"

"Yeah, I know. I inherited it from him."

* * *

The halls were uncannily silent as Mononoke padded through them, ears perked high. She wasn't sure what it was that bothered her so at the moment, but something struck her as unwell. There was nothing out of place in the city though, and Ashira was at her storehouse checking supplies and making sure all her ammunition was secure. And, since the riders from far to the west had appeared, there had been no additional feral dragon attacks to her knowledge. Whether that was merely coincidence or had some meaning behind it she didn't know, but she wouldn't question fortune lest it turn back on her.

All appeared well, so what was it in the air that tasted so bitter?

The wolf sighed and sat down against the wall, looking across the hallway at the painted murals that covered the inner surfaces of the palace. Things had seemed fine on the surface, but that was just it. She couldn't fool anyone, least of all herself; it was merely superficial. The new riders had been growing tense as time went on and they found no answers. Ashira had kept well out of their way when she could so that she would not provoke them and thus anger her ally, though Mononoke worried too that her distance would cast suspicions on the woman as well. Mononoke doubted after all that these people or the animals that had come with them would have any greater opinion of slavery than the wolf did, and if they discovered that side of Ashira's work then tensions might well snap even over something so unrelated to the problems at hand.

The traders Mononoke had sent to the market port to the south had also recently brought back word of unsettling reactions to themselves, guarded merchants and foreigners talking less than usual when they passed as if some terrible word about the people of Láng Chéng had gone out before them.

Mononoke's eyes had been wandering alongside her thoughts, but they settled in a hard stare upon the mural, a particular spot in the painting as her mind turned from present tensions to the reminiscings of more peaceful times. The image before her bore a wolf pup running among the legs of children, chased playfully by other pups and even a young Lung Dragon in a sort of tag game. Her eyes grew watery at the memory it triggered, and Mononoke curled her tail in closer to herself.

 _Why can't things simply return to as they were?_ she asked herself silently, sorrowfully. She longed for those days, ones she could remember clear as day when all of the coast was at peace and people did not fear the dragons, the wolves, or the great cats or bears that lived in the mountains there. It was a time when she did not burden herself with her current name, when she was not hated by their once-allies the Alagaesians, and when answers were simple and easily found if you only knew where to look.

Alas, there was nothing suggesting that such a time would return in the near future; dragons were still going mad at unpredictable times and places, and without that plague ending and her people able to return to safety, Mononoke was stuck fighting for them at the loss of the alliance of the dragon riders of the continent's interior. Lady Ashira and her connections from the islands to the east were strengthened by the wolf's forced choice, but their blatant distrust or even hatred of dragons helped none in trying to circumnavigate the situation, leaving Mononoke trapped still by a decision she never wanted to bear. For all the powers that she had that bolstered trade and made the land bloom, that protected her hide and let her wield the earth as a weapon, they did nothing to prevent war and its poisons. For the first time, now that these new riders had appeared with gifts of their own but outright denial of their own divinity, she had begun to question her own belief that she was, in fact, a demi-goddess. Were not the gods supposed to will the world around them, to make the situations as they pleased rather than be forced to act by them?

Mononoke's mental musings ended when her fur suddenly stood on end, and a distant rumble was picked up by her ears; something told her she was about to discover what made the atmosphere so unbalanced. She hoisted herself to her feet and trotted to the palace entrance, exiting into the courtyard and looking in the direction she thought the noise to be emanating from. It was not yet loud enough for people to hear it, but she saw the other wolves of her pack also pricking their ears high and looking up toward the setting sun.

For a while, there was nothing to be seen, and Mononoke wondered if perhaps she had only heard some distant earthquake or the rumblings of the volcano. It was uncommon, but not unheard of there, as an active mountain was needed to fuel Ashira's forge. However, as it began to grow not only louder, but also notably closer, the sound turned from a low rumble to a louder, clearer reverberation like that of a drawn-out thunderclap, paired with the whistling of wind like that of a great arrow cutting the air.

Then Mononoke spotted the source: streamers of lightning raced off of a figure she could not quite make out at first, each arc searing forward before the form like searching tentacles before branching out in brilliant webs of light. The speed at which the figure approached was incredible, and within only a few moments more not only was everyone in the city able to hear the crackle that quickly grew to deafening, but Mononoke could identify the shape of beating wings within the light spreading from a dragon she had never seen before.

A second later and the dragon was practically above them, stopping in a dead halt halfway between Láng Chéng proper and the settlement on the volcanic slopes that Ashira had set up. The sound of before had merely been the electric streamers trailing ahead of it, but now its supersonic travel caught up with it as the lightning flared with greater intensity off of its wingtips. A sonic crack ripped through the evening sky with the force of a hurricane wind, battering everyone on the ground with a physical blast and making the wolves cry with pain at the sudden, intense sound that shattered glass around them. Mononoke winced and cried out along with them before gritting her teeth and looking up again, realizing the dragon was not so much between her city and Ashira's, but the weapon-maker's settlement and the peak of the volcano.

The reason why, and who the dragon was, became clear not two seconds past as another bolt of lightning rocketed down into the volcano's side from the dragon's tail, lighting up the mountain and making the ground below tremble underfoot as something within the earth shifted. The dragon faded through the light of its weapon and turned its head downward to bellow with unmistakable clarity a single name.

"ASHIRA!"

* * *

I spotted her running out of her munitions warehouse in a shocked rush after my roar, her gun in hand and ready to fire. When her eyes locked on me high above however, she froze; even from this distance, even had I not arrived in an electric storm of my own making, my disposition was clear on my features.

All the better, that they knew the state I was in.

I dove down and hit the ground with another static outburst, the earth vibrating from the impact, and stalked toward Ashira, demorphing and switching the gun I held to one hand as I went. "I've been playing a game of life and death with a sick criminal who calls himself a businessman for approaching two months now," I announced loudly. "That alone has already frayed my stores of patience to a limit. Of all things that I needed, the last was another petty obstacle thrown in the way, particularly one that killed innocents."

I halted in front of Ashira as she stood stock still, registering the men beginning to gather nearby but not caring; they could do little anyway. Holding the confiscated gun out for all to see, I crumpled its barrel in my grip and threw it down at the woman's feet, watching the pieces falling together in her mind through the fearful confusion on her face.

"Was it you who gave the order?" I growled lowly. "Did you send one of your men out to try to ambush my family, the Alagaesian riders who have been helping us? Were _you_ the one whom I should call responsible for Jaetsu Lian's death after all he has tried to do to help make peace again?" My gaze turned toward the soldiers around us. "Or has one of your men done this on their own? Are you hiding others who are responsible for this?"

Ashira gaped like a stranded fish as she glanced between me and the ruined gun at her feet. With a stutter she started to speak, clearly unsure of how to say what she wanted. "I…I never sent out anyone," she said quietly. "No, I wouldn't…I would never do that! The war would worsen and Mononoke would never back such a thing, not now! I wouldn't even send a slave to attempt such a foolhardy"-

"Slave?!"

The word out of my mouth slammed down on Ashira's own, bearing a deadly calm that she caught immediately and brought her to silence.

"You…you keep _slaves_ here?" I pressed again, and her eyes flashed with an emotion that was half fear of my response, half indignation at something she saw as right being hated. It was the last thing I needed; up until that point there was a chance I might have listened to her try to give an explanation and avoided further damage. But that, that snapped whatever clear thinking I'd had left.

My wings unfurled again, black as night and marked by spines and claws, and I flared them wide as I took a menacing step toward the woman. "All of human life is of equal worth, man, woman, child, nation and origin," I hissed. "I know the brutalities of what occurs in this day's term of slavery, and you tell me you practice it. Goes hand in hand, doesn't it? Provoke a fight with the people who prove even other species can stand on even footing intellectually with us, because if they're hated and out of the way then you profit and can continue this blasphemy of life! Free labor to build the weapons you use to conquer and kill with! Even if this war wasn't started by you, you're no seeker of an end to it."

Another step forward, and the shot I had been expecting to occur at some point now rang out from one of the guards nearby. Ashira had been looking around frantically, clearly trying to come up with an explanation that I would still not have heard, but at that sound her eyes widened in panic and she screamed out, "No, wait!"

But the damage was already done. The rest of her men unleashed their round at me, while I turned my head with a choking calm in their direction as the bullets froze midair to hang ominously between them and I. "You dig your own graves," I said softly, lightning flashing between the metal slugs and superheating them until they glowed yellow and sizzled. Then I let them fall to the moist earth to scream out a painful hiss. "I told you all where I stand once, and I'll say it one last time: you want to kill us, I can return the favor a thousand fold!"

Energy swept down from my feet and into the ground, contacting the veins of magma and superheated water far below that gave the volcano its life and powered Ashira's great metal-works factory. Already superheated rock grew more agitated, and I weakened the ground, a fissure fracturing nearby and letting a fraction of the pressure release in a great spew of hot gases, steam, and then a fountain of lava.

Ashira and her men fell back, and I heard her yell something, but I was too angered already to listen as I warped the fields around the heated geyser of rock and let it hover over the now empty munitions house. "Your first recompense," I snapped, and let it drop.

The lava burned with ease through the top of the building and landed on the gunpowder stored within, a cascading reaction setting everything inside off from one end to the other and blowing the warehouse to shards and fire. I held a hand out and brought the flames funneling toward me, swirling in a great spiral around me as they continued to rise into the sky as well, and absorbing the energy they held until I felt like I'd been charged by a straight lightning bolt itself. Then, I turned to look at the horror-struck face of Ashira gazing at her destroyed munitions, and moved to speak again.

A resounding howl cut me off, and I turned in the direction of the main path leading to Láng Chéng. Mononoke and at least 50 wolves raced down the road toward us, her men close behind.

"Hawken!" the lupine queen barked fiercely. "I warn you once, stand away!"

"I've been taken fool of for long enough Mononoke!" I roared back. "Jaetsu Lian of the Alagaesian village is dead, shot in the chest by a weapon made by the people you said you trusted, held by a man wearing their uniform! I came here for answers, and Ashira's was to shoot at us and tell me she holds slaves under hand; I'm finished just standing by in this mess _you_ have let fester for long enough!" Raising one hand , I let the fire around me coil in front of it in my warning.

Mononoke snarled as she slowed her approach, before tilting her head back and letting out a howl. I felt the influence sweep by, and not only the wolves but moments later several other creatures of the surrounding forest appeared in answer, rallying to her call: a tiger, two brown bears, and several smaller woodland predators I did not immediately recognize. They rushed forward, intending to make a ring around me to at least distract me from my intentions.

Snarling as well, I responded in kind with a trick of my own, one I had not used in years.

A warbling, pinging noise rippled through the evening, as I called to the same animals Mononoke had turned on me. I could not control them like she could, not with her influence present and certainly not like a true Alpha could a wild dragon, but it was confusion enough that they halted in their tracks, unable to decide what to do, and I locked eyes with Mononoke herself.

The wolf had lowered to the ground, and moments later the reason for her attempted distraction was apparent: the glowing magma I had released cooled and the fissure from which it seeped sealed over, but only just before Mononoke registered that I had stopped her diversion and her expression grew dumbfounded.

"You can't beat me, _Bearer of Death,_ " I warned, shocking her with one of the many translations of her name. "I cannot control animals like you, but I can slow them down. I am not infallible, but neither are you."

"I am a demigod!" she barked back, hackles rising high. "No weapon can harm me and I influence the very earth beneath me! I guard this land and you threaten it and its people now, so I am forced to show your folly!" She snarled loudly, and leapt at me, closing the distance between us in a single jump with ease. I brought up a clawed hand to block her, and to my shock as she collided with me it was as if I had been slammed by a freight train.

Razor sharp claws that could have torn through steel didn't manage to even shave a hair from her, and I felt something snap in my arm as Mononoke bit down on it. Thrown to the side in surprise and pain, I hissed and healed over the broken bone before whirling back to my feet, materializing a sword and morphing fully in the same breath.

Mononoke was not impressed by the comeback of course, and turned to me with vengeance in her gaze. She had been shot by guns and flamed by dragons; a sword held by a black reptile said nothing to her.

I waited until the wolf leapt forward again before dematerializing all but the sword. Mononoke yelped in shock as she passed straight through me, and then as she stumbled upon hitting the ground and turned I struck my own blow. The gleaming Mysteel blade hurtled through the air aiming for her shoulder, and this time, it struck with effect, even the shallow angle shearing hair and biting into Mononoke's shoulder, breaching skin and muscle. She howled in pain and disbelief, staggered by the alien sensation that she was undoubtedly completely unprepared for.

In her static state I was ready, whipping up great ropes of shadow and entangling her fully, sending her to the ground immobile and bleeding for possibly the first time in her life. Then, I towered over her, eyes still not red but black as the rest of me as I glared down.

"You are no god, or demigod," I spat with finality. "You are a gifted soul with a lost mind, fed lies and tricked under your nose by people who claimed to be your allies." I shot a glare at Ashira, who stepped forward in an attempt to say something to protest but stopped by a dagger of shadow erupting in front of her to halt her. "I am human, little more but with a gift that lets me reach further. I cut you, when no one else could scratch you, by a sword made merely by another gifted human. Your strength is nothing when held by dark matter, part of the universe that you cannot see let alone control, and for all you can do I or one of my allies can match you move for move, everything you attempt. You are no god."

I shifted, bending down so I was nose to nose with Mononoke's trembling gaze. "You want to know what a real god is?" I asked. "I serve the only one that exists, Yahweh Elohim, master of all things, creator of the gifted souls like those whom stories of gods often speak of. Me, I can set off volcanoes, curb a windstorm, quell forest fires and set off explosions that could level this entire valley. But him? He controls the very flow of life and death; he can say one word and cover the land with creatures of all kinds or lay it bare as old stone. He can lift or level mountain ranges with a thought; he parted the very oceans to their floors to make land and sky. He can bring fire and ice to coexist, heal wounds and illnesses I cannot touch and end wars by changing the very hearts of those who wage them. I fight with my hands and tools and gifts to end the injustices that a thousand evils bring to the worlds I inhabit, but he made those hands and tools and gifts and the same of every human and animal that exists, those you call allies or those you _enslave_. He spoke and all that exists, the very earth, the stars in the heavens, every aspect we can and cannot see became in an instant. _That_ is what a God is. _You_ are a pawn for him to move, either a servant or a tool doomed to nothingness when all is at an end."

I backed off slightly, my rant cooling my mind enough so that my eyes began to fade to red again, but still enchained in fury. "I now find it nearly impossible to trust any words that you or your so-called allies have anymore, Mononoke," I growled, rearing up again. "Someone trying to fix this problem that you claim to have battled for two and a half decades is now dead, by the weapons you say you now rely on only for protection. Either Ashira is lying to you and you have missed it in all these years, or one of her or your men have duped you as well to continue a bloodbath. I am looking for an answer, and either I will leave with one to end this, or I will end the war by ending the side that provoked and prolonged it; the 'Monster' who leads this city can meet the end all true monsters meet, or she can stop fighting me and find me those answers I need, starting with why the emblems of her allies showed up on the man who killed an innocent."

As I let the ropes die back, I saw Mononoke's eyes flash with another shock, mirroring the one she'd only barely been able to register before. "Yes," I toned, "I know what your name means. I knew before I ever came here what that word means. Now I ask one last time: what is"-

"HAWKEN! STOP!"

The new voice hit me like ice water in the early morning, and suddenly the vast majority of the ire I had been swimming in started draining off like the water of a dirty bath. Ember, Amethyst, and the two raptors with them landed nearby moments before Snotlout, Natasha, Sasha and Fenrir, and Peter came to earth, Peter holding the bindings of the shooter tight as Ember leveled her bow at me, taking in the results of my wrath around us with disdain and her hair glowing furiously to prove it.

"Calm down and stop this before I have to shoot you and deal with the tatters of whatever negotiations might be left myself," she warned, slipping off of Orha's back. "You know I can too; I have the dosage ready and you can't block me."

"Something's not right about all of this Hawken," Amethyst continued, her level tone in place of mine (something usually reversed) continuing to douse my fury. "Our captive is wearing the clothes of Ashira's soldiers, yes, but it doesn't fit. There's no way Ashira would have sent one of her own; she already knows guns wouldn't work on one of us and you just proved what the retaliation would…" Her words dropped as her gaze turned and focused for the first real time on the smoldering warehouse, and her wings dropped. "Oh my…Hawken, what have you done this time?!" she gasped.

Conscious thoughts fueled by something other than blind anger started coming back, and with it all the realizations I should have had long before now. Then the wall of guilt hit me moments later, hard enough to knock me to my knees as I also took in my own works, my eyes traveling from the smoke of the burning building to Ashira's angered, hurt, and lost expression before settling on Mononoke's bleeding shoulder. A heave nearly turned into retching as I fought down the nausea at my reaction of only a few minutes before.

Seeing me return to the land of the thinking, Ember shook her head disappointingly and lowered her bow, her hair fading along with the rest of the present sun as she nodded to Peter. "Bring him over," she said, turning to walk toward Ashira with an expression of apology and concern. "This all might have been avoided," she sighed, and I could taste the disappointment on her tongue as much as I could feel it from the rest of our group; even Snotlout was looking at me like I was a toddler who had done something I should have known better than to do. They were right, too.

Ember halted in front of Ashira, waiting for Peter to catch up with the captive, and the other woman looked up with a stare devoid of emotion. "What?" she asked flatly, before following Ember's gaze to Peter's captive.

"Everything can be answered here and now with one question," Ember said. "Do you recognize this man at all?"

Ashira looked at the man for almost a minute, scrutinizing him with cold eyes, but eyes that gave off no signs of her knowing him even when Ember flicked on a flashlight to illuminate his face. But then, her gaze fell down to his outfit, and her eyes narrowed with the anger that she'd been building underneath and with a clear, and venomous connecting of puzzle pieces. "I do not know him, but I most very well know his clothing," she said fiercely, holding herself up tall once more as she grabbed the man's shirt much as I had only perhaps a half hour before, if that. "This is my lieutenant's suit; we thought he had lost it months ago on an envoy to the trade market well to the south. Not lost, but stolen I see!" Turning him around to face her soldiers, she asked, "Those of you who have traveled to the markets, have you ever seen this man before?" For extra effect, she removed the helmeted hat the man still wore, revealing his whole face and hair as Ember continued to shine her flashlight on him.

A few moments of silent scrutiny passed before one of not Ashira's men, but among Mononoke's forces huffed in anger. "I know I have seen him before," he said sharply, pointing at the man. " _You_ are always in the back of the stalls where those Coalition hunters sell their goods and exotic creatures! You set us and our allies up, didn't you?!"

Most would have missed the slight flicker of fear that flitted across the captive's face, a sign of being found out, but apparently Ashira and I did not. Her grip tightened. "It makes sense now, I see," she said lowly, turning to glare at him again. "The claim of these riders that they are looking for a dragon stolen by hunters; you stole our uniforms and impersonated us so that they would come after us and you could profit from the fight. That's what you thought, isn't it? Are we to assume that your people are behind the plague that has driven our war here as well? Did I find alliance here with Mononoke because of a ruse two and a half decades old, that has killed hundreds?"

Her words were growing sharper with each accusational question, but the captive hunter failed to meet her eyes or answer any of them. In response, Ashira practically snarled and threw him onto the ground in the direction of the still-burning storehouse, before whipping out her own rifle again. "I distrust dragons because my home was attacked for centuries!" she yelled. "I was told by these dragon riders no less that it was because they were driven by monsters made by a madwoman, and now seeing you I think I could believe it! You take advantage of that distrust and sent another power tricked by the hands of your Coalition to destroy my defenses for it! Answer my questions or I will not hesitate to relieve you of your _head_ for this!" The gun aimed point-blank at his forehead, and Ashira's eyes clearly held no reservations on using it now.

"Ashira, wait!" I yelled, garnering her attention as I searched for the right words; after a moment I decided that action instead would speak louder, so I swept my hand forward toward the warehouse. I could not return it back to its original state of course, not with what had burned away, but I could at least start by reversing a portion of the damage I had wrought. The energy I had absorbed and the flames still present coalesced, cooling and dying back to form the volatile powder they'd originated from, and a handful of shattered barrels stitched back together to be filled by it. When what I could give back was finished, I lowered my hand and sighed in exhaustion.

"Temper runs high in me at times," I said quietly, breathlessly, "and, well, you've seen the damage that flaw can do. I reacted without all the answers at hand, something that by now I should know better than to do, and I can't restore everything but I hope that this can be a tide-over until the rest can be replaced. I'll even pay the cost if you wish for what else I took here. But you see what we've been fighting with all this time: the Coalition care for profit to themselves and nothing else, not the people their tactics harm and certainly not the animals they'd just as soon harvest. Those most loyal to the cause will never give you anything, even on threat of death, so warning him that you will kill him will earn none of us any answers."

I gestured to the hunter, who I could see still held a very well-earned fear but also anger developing at the realization that some of what he'd attempted was failing. "You fight Peter's people," I said, "and then he feeds off of that because dragons, even the wolves of Láng Chéng are little more than money to him. Help end the fight, and they lose their profit, while gaining a humiliation that may be a far better punishment than death. He learns nothing after all if he is no longer alive."

Ashira stared at me, her expression unreadable for several seconds. Then she slowly lowered her weapon and snapped her fingers. "Lock this man up," she told the approaching soldiers. "We'll decide his fate later."

"You'll fail, you know," the hunter suddenly spoke up as he was hoisted back to his feet, and a leery grin on his face. "Humans and dragons…they'll always be at war."

My tail whipped out and sliced a gash across his face before he could get another word out. "If so, then just the same as humanity will war with itself until the end of time," I spat. "Another of my regards for Jaetsu and everyone else who's suffered under this chaos here that you fed. Good and evil have been a divide since time began, but those on whose side God and his warriors reside will win in the end. You're far more the failed one already."

As he was led away, Ashira looked back at me with a pensive gaze. "This has not helped me to trust you any more than when we first met," she said, eyes flickering to the still-shattered warehouse. "But, more so has it made me hate the hunters you came here after. They say a mutual adversary make allies, as it did with Mononoke and I. If you tell us anything more that we should know about these men then I will personally go to their trade center and hurl them to the seas for this and whatever else they have brandished against us before. Then, maybe, we can start fixing the mess they've caused."

"They were the reason for the name I carry."

The soft words silenced all of us, and we turned to watch Mononoke limp to her feet again. Another pang of guilt raced through me, and I twitched a hand to repair the wound I had made. Mononoke jerked back in shock at the sensation, before looking to me as I nodded. Then, however, she sighed and her ears fell flat again.

"Mononoke was not my given name," she said. "It was Xi'nai, or Beloved in the common tongue. I was born far to the north of here, and though it was decades ago I remember the emblem of the raiders that destroyed my home. Because even back then I could not be hurt, I took out my rage on them in return, and then the next village I came across before I fell to mourning my family alone. Word spread, in part through the very hunters whom I killed the entire raiding party of, and traders and villages gave to me the name from the east." She looked to the ground, sitting down and curling her tail around herself. "I…I didn't reject the title, not after what I knew I'd done, and because I no longer deserved my former name." A gaze off to the distance attempted to hide the tears of memory that rolled down her muzzle, but most of us saw them anyway. Mononoke…no, _Xi'nai_ hadn't explained much about how she had entered her current position or how it related to the issue at hand, but I could tell something more was still in her explanation.

"The hunters attacked my village, wolf and human, because we stood in the way of their trade," she said. "But after my rampage none ever appeared to put a hand against me again. I bore my burden alone, had this city built to avoid such a thing ever happening again and left them alone so long as they did me as well because I did not want to return to that state, but when dragons began to turn on us and our once-allies took their side as I saw it…"

She didn't finish, but I knew what she was going to say: Xi'nai had feared losing her home again, and so fought to protect it, forging a divide where none should have formed.

I glanced to where Peter stood, and saw his expression; this he had never heard either, clearly. We were all waging war against each other because we had landed in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now more than before there was evidence the hunters were at least profiting off of it.

If there was more to it though…the hunters had almost certainly started this twenty-five year war, that was growing clear even if we didn't know how, and suddenly I was getting a better picture of what part taking Tsefan had in it all. I knelt down, and caught the wolf's attention, looking at her sternly.

"An attack in your youth left you lacking the opportunity to learn what you're really meant for," I said softly. "Your given name is more fitting than you realize, _Xi'nai_. I am sorry for what I did here tonight, for the fact that I dragged myself into this mess without getting everything I needed first, but it doesn't do anything to beat ourselves up over what we can't change. I'm sure there's a way we can fix this, especially now that nearly the whole picture is in the open, but we can't do so by continuing to point fingers and undermining each other, second-guessing our agreements and so on. I don't think Peter and his village want to be fighting any more than you do, but if we keep holding suspicions against each other," at this I looked to Ashira, nodding both my apology and acknowledgement of her skepticism of us, "then this will continue. The hunters have a major hand in driving this, that we know now without question, so we need to focus on them and find our answers, on all sides."

The female wolf looked at me with hesitation, and after that series of events I could not blame her. Then her eyes snapped up behind me, and I turned to follow her gaze.

"Well, I can't tell if I arrived way too late or just in time," Tan Qiao said, stepping into the ring of people and animals that had formed with wariness, particularly as he walked in between Natasha and Rachel with several men and wolves in tow. In his hand was a rice paper letter, gripped carefully to prevent it from wrinkling.

"The envoys on the last trade mission thought those Coalition hunters were acting somewhat strangely, if not getting the whole market to look at us with suspicion, especially after our men mentioned that dragon you were looking for," he explained, pointing the letter in his hand at me, and then my friends before nodding to Mono… excuse me, _Xi'nai._ "So, we sent a couple of the wolves to follow them about a week ago. They came back and brought us into the woods to the southwest of the port, where the caves down there begin showing in the mountains again." He huffed, and held up the letter; not so much a letter however, as I saw curving lines through the paper, but a map. "I think we found a hideout finally, and if they do have a great hand in this fight we've all been locked in for so many years, then I think we might just find our answers why if we look there."

* * *

 **A/N- When you go over the edge, it's not pretty for anyone present, least of all yourself when you clamber back up. It's gonna take a bit to try and patch that mess up...**

 **As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	24. Chapter 23: Desert, Diversions, Danger

Chapter 23

Desert, Diversions, Danger

/

 _They hid within the scorching sands_

 _One of many secrets you sought_

 _A step to an end was in your reach_

 _But not without having fought_

 _For they had stakes to stand for too_

 _The war to be won the prize_

 _But death is what they desired most_

 _An end to the peaceful wise_

 _-0-_

The description they'd been given was accurate: on the edge of the sand dunes, where the moving mountains of the Sahara began to shift to rock and sparse vegetation, a wash had eroded out a delta-style ravine broad at one end and narrowing as it cut into the stone toward the hills beyond. Russet colored cliffs stood against the setting sun's colors in the sky, and at their base was a trio of men standing with bows in hand as they scanned the horizon. Up top, three more patrolled the heights of the cliffs.

Not one of the guards had spotted the gaggle of characters crouched down in the sparse grass a couple hundred yards away through, observing them carefully and with plotting intent.

Of course, that may have been due to the cloak Loki had fixed around them that no man would be able to see through (Hawken possibly notwithstanding), but he and the others in the group with him didn't care how they avoided being spotted, just so long as they remained unseen for the time being. After all, trying to get in without raising direct alarms took time to plan; they couldn't permanently hurt the guards, nor could they be identified by any of Viggo's men.

"Entrance must be in that curve there, beyond those three dolts," Eret said, pointing toward where the cliffs began to bend away into the hills. "They won't stand right where the doorway is as that would just give it away, and it's the most accessible without being visible from approaching parties." He turned and looked at the others crouched next to him, and began delegating jobs. "Loki, we'll send you, Kingsley, Feren, and Delta inside; one person who can move about invisibly and three that can change size should be able to get around without being spotted a lot more easily than the rest of us. Everyone else, we'll set up distractions to pull the guards away and cut their visibility; Ingavar, you and Melania can kick up a small dust storm with Twintail's help, and Spitfire, Attonius, and I can move around somewhat cloaked down in the wash here. Tuff, Cami, you guys do what you do best with the other two raptors. "

"Oooh, chaos and insanity!" Cami snickered lightly, drawing eye rolls from the others but an agreeing snigger from Tuff. "Cause a cave-in uphill, maybe?"

"Preferably not something that risks burying us alive while we're inside, thank you," Loki quipped, sending her a warning glare.

"Fine, small rock slide somewhere away from the door, happy?"

Loki turned to Eret, scowling. "Can we take her inside as a contingency?" he asked hopefully.

Feren shook his head instead. "Considering we want to be in and out without alerting anyone too badly, no," he replied, his tail twitching both in anticipation and exasperation. "If Tsefan is here then we can let them cause all the chaos they want both inside and out after we get him clear, but if not we can't risk, unfortunately, damaging anything inside or letting them spot a Rider snooping around within or else Viggo will turn it on us."

"Well we're losing daylight here," Attonius noted, looking up at the sky. "Anyone human is going to lose a lot of advantage once that occurs, unless we spotlight ourselves."

"Agreed," Ingavar said, moving into a kneeling position as he brushed some settling dust off his shoulders. "We have our tasks, so let's move out before we start riskin' stepping on scorpions and the like. Not all of us have impenetrable footwear right now after all."

"Stop by Berk sometime and we can trade you a pair then," Kingsley offered with a grin. "But you're right, we need to move."

They began to spread out, keeping low amongst the sand and rocks as they made their way toward encircling the ravine delta. Loki stretched out his illusion as far as he could to prevent any of the guards detecting them, but it couldn't last forever. Soon enough, the others began to notice a shimmer across the air above them as the cloak receded, and drew themselves low to the earth as they finished setting up.

Eret and Attonius peeked out from behind Spitfire's camouflaged form as they peered at the guards now only thirty feet away patrolling the ravine floor. "We'll wait for the others to begin their distractions before we split up," Eret decided. "Keep to the rocks, let them see you just briefly perhaps Attonius, but try not to let them get a good glimpse; you've had the stealth training alongside the rest of us." He looked at his dragon, and grinned. "Spitfire, you already know what to do."

The barely distinguishable outline of the Changewing's head bobbed, before he turned back to glare at the guards, waiting.

A minute or so of anxious silence passed before a flash of light appeared somewhere above the ravine rim, followed by a sound like that of a great windstorm accompanied by a wall of sand racing across the rocks. The guard on the cliff yelled and crouched down, shielding his face from the pelting particles thrown at him by the Desert Wraith and Zippleback somewhere in the dunes beyond, and thus losing his effectiveness as a sentry.

The sudden dust storm caught the attention of the other guards too, but they barely had time to raise their bows in reflex before a sharp crack echoed down the canyon. Rocks tumbled down the cliff walls as they were blasted off by either fire or compact explosives, and the second guard down the length of the ravine heights turned to investigate only for something to also blow up at his feet, leaving him coughing in a thick cloud of green smoke.

"And that's our cue!" Eret announced, tumbling out from behind Spitfire as he scooped up a rock and tossed it in the direction of the men protecting the hideout's door. They jumped at the sound of the stone, before swinging their bows in the direction of the flash of movement they caught when Attonius followed Eret's example and dashed past Spitfire into another cover of rocks.

For a moment, the three guards simply stood there, on edge and waiting, before two of them began to creep toward the disturbance and the third stood his ground adjacent to where the Riders suspected the doorway was. He didn't stay there for long though, his comrades occupied as they were and a sudden movement off to his other side drawing his attention.

Spitfire let his eyes fade into view for half a second before he raced across the ravine floor, an odd game of chase where the target was the chaser, and the hunter the chasee. The Changewing kept little flashes of scales or claws appearing here and there to keep the man busy following him, leading him further and further from the door as Eret and Attonius did the same on the other side of the rock piles in the delta.

For that one necessary moment, the door was completely unguarded, and Loki nodded to the three assigned with him as they linked hands (or tails). A second later they were standing by the door, a frame just around the bend painted to seamlessly blend with the rock itself but the metal build and doorknob obvious enough at close range. Loki kept up the cloak as he bent over to examine the knob, reaching out to turn it experimentally.

Unsurprisingly, it was locked, though that didn't bother the telekinetic much. A feeling probe, and he determined the lock mechanism, maneuvering it with ease inside and hearing a satisfying 'click!' as the door unlocked. Now, the knob turned without issue, and Loki urged the others through before he followed and closed the door behind them.

Within, they found themselves in a tunnel carved from the sandstone, lined with lamps burning off of an unknown oil (from the smell, Feren guessed though that it was derived from a whale of some sort) and leading into a larger foyer-type entry with several more tunnels and rooms branching off of it. The sounds of a handful of people bustling around somewhere up ahead kept them all plastered against the wall within Loki's cloak, but Feren did carefully reach up to turn on his com to alert the others.

"This is Feren checking in," he said. "We're in."

* * *

Tuffnut may or may not have been having a little too much fun as he jammed his spear between cracks in the rocks, cackling as they cracked and split before rolling down the cliff.

"One big boulder, two big boulders, _three_ big boulders, boom!" he laughed as they crashed to the floor of the wash below. "Hey Cami, think we can fill the canyon before they come out?"

"Not only do I not think that, as it would take forever," Cami drawled, "but if Loki pops himself and the others out and they find themselves stuck in a pile of rocks because you barricaded the doors, then after they extract themselves I'll freely let them beat you with whatever they find suitable nearby." She slid along Stormfly's wing as the dragon maneuvered her to a new location. Her target guard of choice was still attempting to stumble his way out of the smoke cloud she'd covered him in with her little "surprise pills" as she'd come to call them, but she had no intention of letting up. After all, she had hundreds of the little things to use thanks to the mischief-maker in the base beneath her feet and they needed the guards out of the picture until Loki and company were done.

Soon, the entire top of the cliff was enshrouded in a grass-colored haze, only the very edges kept free of the smog (after all, Cami didn't want to be the one accidentally making the guy fall to his death; Viggo would not respond well at all to that if they didn't find anything here). Then Cami turned back to her husband, who was still busy causing rock slides further up the rim but a touch too close for comfort to the entry below.

"Eret and Attonius are down below too," she warned, "so how about you toss some rocks around up here instead. This guy knocks himself out, our job will be made a whole lot simpler."

Tuff sighed dramatically. "Yeah, it would," he groaned, "but it doesn't look as cool as the rocks falling down the cliff do."

"Tuffnut…"

"Alright, fine!" he snapped, leaving the edge of the ravine like a teenager told to get off their phone and ambling over to where his wife and Stormfly were crouched, breaking off a rock chunk as he squatted down next to them. "So where is he? I can't see through all the green."

"That's the point," Cami quipped, but she held onto a faint grin as she pointed. "I think he'll come out about there next."

Sure enough, a bit more hacking and coughing resounded from the swamp-hued cloud, and movement appeared off to one side as the guard tried to stumble into clear air again. Cami pulled back her hand again to line up a shot so the next smoke bomb would color the air right in front of him, but Tuff beat her to it, standing up and lobbing his rock at the man with a loud grunt.

They all mostly expected the throw to fall way short and end up mostly just as another distraction, especially as Tuff's aim was not often the best. Unsurprisingly, all three jaws present immediately dropped in shock when the stone collided head-on with the guard's helmet, releasing a resounding CLANG! that echoed off the cliffs. The guard stopped moving forward too, his eyes flaring wide in a dazed surprise of his own, before he let out a groan and slumped to the ground, out cold.

Cami blinked a couple of times, unable to move as she processed this sudden turn of events, before she looked over at Tuff. "Well," she began haltingly, "uh…good shot, Tuff? I, uh, wasn't actually expecting you to hit him."

Tuff nodded dumbly, clearly also not expecting his own luck, before a grin appeared and he jammed his spear downward again, breaking off another section of rock. "I'm gonna try and nail the other guy across the way now!" he sniggered, jumping up toward the green cloud.

Cami yelped and leapt up as well, her extra speed letting her catch him before he'd gotten even a foot in that direction. "Whoa, thanks for the enthusiasm but, uh, Tuff, even Eret wouldn't be able to throw that far and actually hit something," she said, nodding toward the cliffs. "The other side's a few hundred feet off at least, and that's if the other guard is still where he was. From the sound of the dust storm they're making over there, he might be, but we're not gonna be able to see him. And if you miss, last thing we need is him spotting you."

At Tuff's disappointed pout, the Bog Burglar smirked and leaned over to peck him on the lips. "Hey," she offered, "we can still keep distracting the guards down below; just don't hit Eret and company, okay? Or, you and Stormfly go look for other guards up here along the ravine."

"No need," Shadow announced, he and Talon appearing from among the boulders. "We went looking to see if there's another entrance anywhere, since it would be _really_ stupid if they relied on just the one door down there. There might be a hidden trapdoor in the rocks back that way," he pointed behind him, "but they don't have any guards posted on it and it doesn't open from outside. We did find this though hiding among the rocks, oddly enough." He gestured to Talon, who held out something none of them were expecting to come across in the middle of the desert.

Tuffnut's eyes flew wide immediately at the sight. She was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen, Camicazi a special case notwithstanding. Beady-eyed, with a bright red comb and even, shiny auburn feathers, she looked around frantically for a means to get away from the reptile that held her and locked eyes with Tuff as well.

"A…chicken?" Stormfly queried uncertainly, arching an eyebrow as she flushed green in confusion. "The heck is a chicken doing out in the middle of the Sahara?"

"Must, uh, be an escapee from the hunters here," Cami mused, looking equally befuddled (though more from wondering why the raptors had brought it over than why it was in the desert). "I guess if there's water in the wash anywhere, then there's probably seeds and insects to eat. Hey, we could take it to make a meal for a few of us later, I doubt the hunters will miss one escapist…Tuff, you okay there?" She looked in concern at her husband, the gangly blond looking like he'd been hit over the head one too many times (which he had, but that was beside the point).

"Shes…adorable!" Tuff cooed, immediately drawing worried looks from everyone else as he slipped forward and grabbed the bird. The chicken in turn frantically flapped toward him and away from Talon before nestling against Tuff's suit. "I'm gonna keep her."

"Uh, Tuff, you're not getting dehydrated again, are you?" Stormfly asked him, dropping her head down to look at his face.

Tuff merely shook his head. "No, I'm fine!"

"It's a chicken, Tuff."

"She's my chicken now! And I'm going to take her home with us, and feed her and love her, and name her…Chicken."

"My, how original," Shadow quipped in exasperated amusement, looking around as the novelty of the odd find wore out and their present situation returned to his notice. "Shouldn't we get back to…you know?"

Cami sighed and put her hands on her hips, nodding. "Okay, Tuff, keep the chicken if you really have to, but Shadow's right: right now we've got a job to…"

A loud creaking noise from down below caught her attention and she trailed off as she and Stormfly moved past the only just fading smoke cloud to peer over the cliff's edge. The door below was now wide open, and another eight or so men had appeared, all with bows drawn as they spread out to search for those responsible for the disturbances to their base.

"Well if they're out here then I guess that's fewer people for Feren and the others to bother with," Cami sighed. "Talon, Shadow, head that way and make some noise, draw as many as you can from Eret and Attonius below. Tuff, get over here and give me a hand with these blockheads."

Tuffnut did as commanded, but continued to clutch his apparently newfound favorite pet tightly as she clucked against his chest. Cami bit back an exasperated growl at the sight.

"You're going to have to put Chicken down, you know."

"No! I can throw with one hand! I'm awesome like that."

"Look, Stormfly can keep an eye on her if it's that much of a"-

"My Chicken!"

* * *

"We're not going to find anything in here," Kingsley commented flatly, his tongue flickering rapidly as he slid over a stack of crates. "Whole room is nothing but spices and herbs, maybe some ivory. No animal life at all though unless you count some thieving rodent." He turned his head to look up at the others. "Let's try the next room over."

"Ugh, this place is a maze," Delta huffed. "We need a better strategy, but we can't all risk splitting up; even when small Feren and I are too conspicuous in shape."

"Then I'll head off down that way," Kingsley offered, pointing his tail down the hall that continued almost straight out beyond the open door, "and the rest of you continue down the main hall. I look like a rope tossed on the floor if I lay right anyway; I think I'll be fine."

"Are you sure about this?" Loki asked hesitantly, his eyes flickering to the door as well as he checked the cloak he had down; they were fine if it was doing as needed blocking sight and sound, but if he'd messed up the lay somehow, it wouldn't be good if one of the base's inhabitants wandered by It'd happened only once long ago, but one couldn't be too careful. "The others may have drawn out a number of the men here, but I highly doubt everyone went outside."

"I'm a snake that can grow to over 30 feet long with a means to make Speed Stinger venom, and I'm wearing both Myscale shingles and a barrier gem."

"Point taken. Alright, notify us over the communication headsets if you find anything then."

The cobra nodded, and a second later he was out the door and down the hallway, barely visible in the low flickering light of the lamps as he rocketed across the dusty stone floor.

Feren huffed and headed for the door as well. "Well, you heard him," he muttered, "nothing in here so we might as well keep moving."

Loki nodded agreement and followed, Delta right behind him, and after pausing at the door to make sure they weren't about to plow into anyone still walking the halls, they slipped out and turned down the side corridor after closing the room up behind them , looking for doors that seemed promising.

The hideout appeared to be partly built out of a naturally eroded series of catacombs, likely a portion of what once was an entire cave system under the rocks that had collapsed mostly to form the ravines like that which snaked by outside into the alluvial fan. Partly though, it had also been shaped by manmade tools, and not always in a manner that was conducive just to moving about within. As they traveled Feren could see why too: glimpses of sparkling shards in the stone caught their eyes, hints of possible jewel or ore deposits that were likely once mined from the stone before the value of the tunnels as a base outweighed any further serious digging and risk of collapse. No doubt mining still continued deeper within somewhere though; the Hunters were not ones to just abandon any possible source of income.

The trio reached another wide space off of which a couple of short hallways ran; one of them was clearly marked as a living quarters, so they chose another that soon led them past a much stronger looking iron doorframe, bolted into the walls. It had a view plate in it, so this time instead of manipulating the lock and risking the noise of creaking doors attracting someone (as many times as he'd tried, Loki still hadn't figured out how to block out sounds that vibrated through the stone itself very well), the Asgard lifted the plate and peered inside, lighting the room with an ethereal glow to see the layout before he reached back and grasped Feren and Delta's paws, teleporting them all within.

This room definitely appeared to be far more promising, housing not rocks or tiny boxes of spices but jugs of water and metal cages alongside larger, sturdier transport crates. Half of the cages held a variety of small mammals and reptiles, creatures likely sought by the rich as exotic pets, and the other half…young dragons, of a dozen different species from Desert Wraiths to Triple Stryke hatchlings and small Viperwyrms, even baby Singetails. Loki could only guess to what the closed crates held within them, and bristled at the thought.

"Well, if there was a question that they deal with dragons on this route I think we answered it," Delta spat, her lips parting in a disgusted snarl and revealing rows of sharp teeth as she looked pityingly on the dragons she knew she couldn't release, not yet. "Looks like this room was carved out a ways back into the rock too." She darted carefully past the towering stacks, wrinkling her nose at the smell of both animal refuse and the distinct scent of long-dead, dried parts. The thoughts that came to mind at that were not pleasant and were highly distracting, so she forced them down as she called out carefully, "Tsefan? Tsefan, are you in here somewhere?"

Loki swept his hand up and sent a glowing band out across the ceiling, illuminating even the far end of the space, where mostly more water jugs and a handful of livestock animals sat, the latter in pens away from the dragons and no doubt to be food for said reptiles as well as the hunters here. Distinctly lacking however, was the presence of any cages large enough to hold a two year old Night Fury, the livestock pens obviously notwithstanding, and Delta and Feren sagged as soon as they determined another dead end.

"I'm only smelling animals in here too, nothing that makes me think disease or poison," Feren said, sniffing carefully. "No answers on that front."

"Well, unless you count the hunters themselves," Delta growled. "They're a disease all their own."

"Point taken. But save for the sick practice here, there's nothing useful. We need to move on."

"No venomous animals that they might extract from to make a savage-inducing serum?" Loki asked hopefully. His eyes were fixed on a cage that held some sort of viper he didn't recognize, and he wondered if perhaps one of those animals could be the answer.

Feren shook his head. "You probably wouldn't find any animals whose venoms or poisons would cause that," he explained. "No advantage to them for it. Sickness sure, as a deterrent to predators, death for hunting or defense, but it wouldn't do any animal much good to cause an attacker or prey item to go mad and risk even more injury to the venom-holder in the process."

He couldn't deny the logic of the answer, though it wasn't what the Asgard wanted to hear. He nodded in resignation and then motioned toward the door, suggesting they head out again and keep looking around some more. As soon as they'd teleported back to the hallway outside however, their coms clicked on.

"Guys," Kingsley said through the line, "I think I may have found something back down in the other hallway."

"Is it Tsefan? Or a clue where he is?" Feren asked hopefully.

"No," was the all too quick response, "but maybe an answer to the other problem we've got. There was a steel door with a view plate on it so I could get in, and this whole room smells like flowers and chemicals. I can't open the crates just yet, but there's a table in here covered in glass jars and vials too."

"We're headed there now then," Loki replied, looking to the others. They nodded agreement before the trio dashed back down the hallway, pausing as another hunter hurried by with a sack of what looked like flower in his hands on the way to the living quarters, before hurrying down the corridor again.

Feren's nose led them in the last stretch to the door they had to assume Kingsley was referring to, following the cobra's scent straight to the steel frame that once more Loki peered through before teleporting them all inside. Kingsley was coiled near the back of the room, staring up at the towering rows of crates that filled most of the space, but he glanced back at them when they popped in and nodded to the table that sat by the wall nearby.

"The water underneath there, I think they're using to either mix whatever's in here or rehydrate it for processing," the snake said, referring to the tub below the table. "I don't know what the purple stuff is, but it smells disconcerting and it's not any extract I'm familiar with."

"And you'd know most of them what with your sense of smell and the oils we use," Feren mused, feeling the same sense of discomfort that the snake was. Kingsley was right: the whole room smelled strongly enough of dead leaves and flowers to be more than noticeable even to Loki, and with a trace of a chemical undertone that at least the other three could pick up on.

Loki had gone completely silent as he looked around, and after a few moments he moved almost lethargically over to the table and picked up one of the vials that lay on it. Within, a deep indigo-purple fluid sloshed back and forth, just thin enough to not be considered syrupy but clearly concentrated with a lot of components that weren't water.

"This smells familiar," he said softly, "but I can't place it. There…you all probably know this already, but there are a lot of plants that produce toxins, right? Could any of them drive a dragon mad and keep it that way?"

"None that I'm familiar with,' Kingsley said. "Dragonroot can knock them out, oleander extract is toxic to just about everything, and there are a _ton_ of psychoactive compounds, but nothing that would do what we've been told about and seen without also rapidly killing the animal."

Loki nodded absently, before he set the vial down and turned to regard the mountain of crates. "Well, perhaps they found something around here," he said. "This is a huge store, especially if it's all of the same thing; maybe they use a compendium of things to cause it, if they're truly behind it as that one hunter alluded. We ought to…"

The man trailed off when he looked more closely at one of the crates in the nearest stack. It was made of a wood of a lighter color than the rest, almost a light cinnamon red and a finer grain than the splintery boards of the majority of the other boxes.

"This looks familiar," he said quietly, walking over and kneeling down to feel the wood and scrutinize it carefully.

"What is it?" Delta asked, the raptor coming up to look over his shoulder. Feren shortly followed suit. "Have you seen that crate before?"

"No, the wood," he answered, glancing back at her. "This is cinder pine wood; the only place that grows that I know of is Narnia. Rather prized for its color and sturdiness." He stood up again, looking around with a deathly glare. "Viggo must have somehow contacted the Calormen traders. I…I've got a suspicion now but I need to open a couple of these, so stand back and don't breathe in anything that might pop out, understood?"

When the others nodded and backed away as far as they could, Loki stood up and positioned his hands above the lid of the crate. With one twitch the rivets holding the lid firmly to the rest of the crate came loose and the lid floated up. Within, the contents almost made the Asgard gifted lose his focus and drop the lid on his foot; that nagging suspicion he'd been forming had just been very badly confirmed.

The crate was packed to the brim with dried flowers, each one long-since faded and mostly brown but underneath the age still holding a strong, midnight-blue and purple hue in the veins of every one of the five speckled petals.

"No…this is not good," Loki said almost unnecessarily, dropping the lid back on quickly and sealing it before turning toward the wall and lifting the lid off of another crate. That too was completely filled with flowers, these ones a little fresher and still staining the interior surface violet from their leaking color. That crate he also quickly slammed shut before opening a third closer to the door. This one did not hold flowers, but instead what looked like small sections of root and seeds, a handful of the latter beginning to germinate inside the moist container.

Loki just barely heard Feren ask with great trepidation, "Loki, what are those?" over his own growing worry.

"We need to go," he said, failing to answer the question. "We need to leave, now, and get Hiccup and Hawken and the others back together again. These are what they're using to drive the dragons savage. Come on!" He motioned frantically for the others to gather together and link up as he swept his hand toward the door, the rock around it groaning as it bent in around the steel frame.

"What are you doing?" Delta exclaimed, glancing at him with worry.

"Making sure they have a harder time getting back into this room," he answered. "It won't be something they can blame directly on us, not for now, and maybe it will buy us a little time to deal with this. We're going, now!" Grabbing Delta's paw, he focused, and a second later they were outside standing above the cliffs near where Camicazi and Stormfly were. Loki let go of the others momentarily and turned on the com he'd been lent, yelling into it, "Everyone fall back and group up! Tsefan's not here, but we found the source of the other problem. Cami, you have the wide-range transceiver on you, get Hawken on the line as soon as possible." He turned to her, and then faltered at the sight of Tuffnut behind her carrying a yard bird around.

"Don't ask," Cami advised.

"Why, what did you find?" Twintail's voice called over the transceiver, jerking the Asgard back into focus.

Loki grimaced, grabbing Delta's hand again. "Wildwood," he answered. "I know what they're using to turn the dragons feral; it's wildwood."

"What's that?"

"A very, very, _very_ big bundle of bad news."

* * *

 **A/N-Admittedly, this was more a filler chapter than anything else, but it is the tipping point: they've found an answer, even if not the one they really wanted. If you've been paying attention, you should also be able to tell me what wildwood is analogous to...**

 **As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	25. Chapter 24: K'vevim Ch'vetzim

Chapter 24

K'vevim Ch'vetzim

/

 _Thunder cracked and the sky cleaved twain_

 _The judgement had been passed_

 _They had stepped beyond their bounds_

 _And earned what approacheth fast_

 _But this was not the discipline_

 _Of a righteous overseer_

 _No, the broken border they had crossed_

 _Was the holding of a demon's lair_

 _For too close they had come to unearthing truth_

 _And that he could not withstand_

 _So strike with all his venom he will_

 _And shatter his opponents' hands_

 _-0-_

"Sir, a flock of dragons has been sighted on the southwest horizon, closing in this direction rapidly. They appear to be the Riders; what are your orders?"

"So, they finally located our base here, have they? Or perhaps stumbled on it…doesn't matter much either way though as they're here." He shrugged. "Pretend you never saw them and let them carry on as they please."

"…Sir?"

Viggo sighed and turned to face the man who'd addressed him; Mudvil, he believed his name was. "I do not believe I stuttered any of my words in that order, did I?" he asked lowly.

Mudvil blanched, shaking his head slowly as he turned away a touch in apprehension. "Uhh…no, sir, I just…we do nothing?"

Viggo nodded once, himself turning back to look down at the ship-full of furs and skins that had just arrived in port; all of it would have to be checked off in inventory and then shipped out to its destination. "That is correct," he replied casually. "More or less at least. I gave the Riders my warning: any action that they take that actually slows our progress, anywhere, or hinders trade, and it will be taken out on their precious little dragon as repayment. They can land here and try to look around, but they'll find nothing. If they persist into real meddling, then they'll get what I promised." His hand moved to feel the presence of a cloth-wrapped object in his pocket, a special surprise that put a rare smile on his face. Then the hand moved to another pocket from which a pouch hung off the edge containing a very special contraption, one of only a handful that he had acquired but something that would certainly make Hiccup and his friends think twice about ever trying to snoop about again.

"On second thought," he called, halting Mudvil as the man started to walk away, "spread the word: make sure they do not get into the emergency cells; after all, we don't want them getting any ideas around our special orders, or coming across wayward notes, but once they're all actually here on the base, round them up and send them to me. I have one more message to give them before we drive them off."

"Right away sir," Mudvil affirmed, turning abruptly about-face and heading off to tell the others on the base.

Viggo snorted. Of course the Riders had found the base; it had only been a day or two since word had come in that they were nearby, and he'd known them to be persistent what with having tracked their checking of practically every island in the Archipelago up this way. Never mind though, they had no idea just to what extent he could pull resources from. Had Hawken been mentioned among this particular posse he would have been a touch more concerned, but the therianthrope was already pinpointed in the Far East and so for now that headache was well out of the way. By the time the hunters had sent Hiccup's little entourage packing and word spread, Viggo would have this base down to nothing more than a pit stop anyway, moved off his main haunts to another location and they wouldn't be able to track him back here.

For now though, he awaited the Riders with an anticipation of satisfaction. _They know about the savage dragons, after all,_ he mused to himself as he pulled out the special weapon he'd grabbed out of the pouch upon hearing they were approaching. _Why not give them a savage of their own to deal with? Good luck fixing the mess you're flying into, Hiccup. You won't have any easy outs from this one._

* * *

The island they approached was not dissimilar to Berk, at a distance, save being a little smaller and still far more snow-covered than Hiccup's home was at this time of year. They were, after all, much further north and now officially within the Land of the Midnight Sun here, so the mild darkness they experienced at the moment was only thanks to a small storm that was passing by, pelting them mercilessly with sleet and giant snowflakes.

Nick shook his head as a particularly large mass of wet ice collided with his snout, unconsciously curling his tail in around himself as he thanked Hiccup and company for having given them outfits that fought the cold with relative ease. _So it's only my head and other extremities that suffer,_ he griped to himself, looking over through the slight haze to where Judy sat once again behind Holly, seemingly unaffected by the cold as she gazed determinedly ahead toward their destination. _You never give up though; no wonder I fell for such a rabbit._

They had spotted the island some time ago, picking out the ships and guard towers around it from high up through their spyglasses, but now as they neared the group had dropped almost to the ocean. They stayed just elevated enough to avoid the waves, but low enough that they hoped the weather and dark water would obscure their approach. Nick looked up at Hiccup and queried, "So, what exactly is the plan of attack here? We're probably not gonna just be able to land in the port itself and expected to be welcomed; forest's going to have guards too."

"The woods are gonna have to be our best bet, unfortunately," Hiccup replied back. "I doubt we're going to find some underground flyway in. We, Holly and Judy, and Astrid will come in from the east, Fishlegs and Embron with Jake and the raptors on the west. We can't risk actually interfering unless we find Tsefan here, so remember: keep stealth as your top priority, and don't disturb anything. If we find Viggo instead, we might be able to confront him directly though."

"Somehow I doubt we'll have it as easy as marching up to Viggo's office and demanding our dragon be handed over," Nick sighed. "The guy's strung us along for this long, and I'd bet my tail he'll have a backup for us showing up here."

"So before we actually go in, we need to devise a defensive strategy to keep up the whole time," Astrid called over, "since they definitely have the high ground here."

The grim reminder wasn't exactly necessary, but it hit home the situation for everyone. Unless they sacrificed Tsefan's well-being for revenge, they had only slivers to grasp at to defend themselves too, never mind find the answers they really needed. Those slivers needed to be wielded with precision.

Hiccup locked eyes with Toothless, reassuring the Night Fury that they'd do everything possible, and then with Holly and Astrid to confirm the first go-forward. It wasn't long after that they were hovering close enough to the island that they would likely risk being spotted, especially as such a large group, and the two designated squadrons split off, heading to opposite sides of the visible base.

Nick caught Judy's attention as they approached, easier now that they were a bit closer together and the weather was letting up around the island, and gave her a pointed look that he hoped would say more than words did: he had her back, as always, and this was their element: small and quick as they were, and with enhanced hearing and smell, they would be able to search the place out with greater ease than most of their companions. Judy returned the look with a nod and…something else that flashed for a moment through her eyes and was gone before the fox could identify it. Whatever it was though, it left him feeling a little more bolstered.

The Coalition clearly used a lot of their island's own resources for building, as the forest they landed in was relatively sparse. Straight lines of vision were cut off more by piles and columns of old lava rock and basalt spires than trees; stumps were more what remained, never minding the saplings that were only just starting to sprout up into a thick understory. Nick and Judy slid off the saddles first, followed by the riders and flanked last by the dragons themselves as they began creeping forward. Already their ears (Judy more than Nick) and noses (Nick more than Judy) were telling them a clear story of what lay ahead: bustling people carrying crates or hauling weapons, occasionally yelling out orders or calling greetings as if it were any other old village or trade port. A handful of dragons, raised in captivity and knowing little more than slave labor in their lives, walked among them with chains and ropes keeping them safely tethered, and when they were close enough to see some of the activity the notion made Toothless give off a silent snarl.

All this, before they'd even spotted any major paths, base entrances, or even most of the hunters themselves moving around.

The fox and rabbit glanced at each other, nodded, and signaled the others to follow as they began to wave forward, ducking behind the stone pillars and surviving tree stands when they feared a hunter was passing near and dashing along when the coast cleared up. It wasn't long before they had finally made it into the edge of the base itself (or at least what they had to assume was the edge; as it was half built under the rock it was difficult to judge), splitting up more and using hand signals as the presence of people grew and larger groups became harder to keep undiscovered together. Nick spotted a thick steel door in the side of the nearest hill, no doubt leading into somewhere with more promise of finding hidden dragons or clues as to the source of the feral occurrences.

The fox took up position holding watch one direction, the rabbit the other, and they motioned the others to move in, holding guard as Astrid dashed first to the door and pulled it open. She stuck her head in carefully and checked to see if anyone happened to be inside the dim corridor beyond before nodding assent to Hiccup. He, Holly and their three dragons ran across the open path next and disappeared down the tunnel. Nick flicked his tail up to notify Judy and they followed after them, Judy catching the door with Astrid and closing it silently as they could behind them.

Inside, there was little in the immediate space that was of any usefulness as they looked around, so the group continued to scurry down the tunnel to the point where it curved deeper into the rock, opening into a series of caverns that had been artificially carved out further to suit the needs of the hunters. One corridor, two levels down from them in the apparent central space they were now looking down into, bore a sign above it carved in runes that Hiccup could read clearly even from 50 feet away: LIVE QUARRY.

"There," he whispered, pointing to it, before rapidly retracting his arms as another hunter passed by on the opposite side of the space from where they stood. He disappeared into a tunnel marked DOCKS, permitting a sigh of relief from the group. "Judy, Nick, we're going to need you to move ahead again, search out the path and make sure that it's either clear or we can hide well enough while we search the rooms they've got down that way."

"Got it," Judy affirmed, and she and Nick slunk out around the side of their level, keeping low and to the wall, to the stairway that led down to the terrace they needed.

As they went, Toothless muttered aside, "Starting to think Thorn and I should have stayed in the forest somewhere while you guys go in. We're big enough to be a liability here; Nara at least can shrink at will."

"Knowing Viggo, I think some firepower on hand is a better option," Astrid countered. "And I mean more than what Framherja can offer. And besides, they have dragons as _slaves_ here." She wanted to spit the word out like a bad piece of food, her tongue curling as she said it. "So, with that, the tunnels have to be big enough for you two."

Toothless decided not to argue; they didn't have the time either. Below, a red-furred paw stuck out of their corridor of interest, fingers curled in an "OK" sign.

"Time to move," Hiccup whispered, stepping out of the tunnel they'd arrived through. "Let's not waste any more time up here. Tsefan or not, we're bound to find something that way, but I really hope he's there."

* * *

The place they found themselves in looked like a giant stables setup, a notion confirmed a few minutes later when a hunter walked in through one of the adjoining corridors leading an Armorwing by a chain. He walked the dragon to one of the many stalls and locked it in, securing both the chain it was escorted by was well as closing the hardened metal door behind him as he left, leaving the dragon within.

Meatlug snarled silently at the sight, but it was still enough for Fishlegs to feel the vibration, spurring him to reach back behind himself to pat her reassuringly. "Believe me, girl, I feel the same way," he muttered. "Alright you guys, fan out and see if you can track anything that looks promising in here anywhere. We don't want to disappoint Toothless." He began to tiptoe as best he could along the stalls, peering into each as Embron carried Jake up to the level above and the raptors darted along the far wall. Meatlug knew she would be the most conspicuous wandering in the open, so she stayed put in the corner near where they'd snuck in to act as a lookout of sorts.

To both his relief and simultaneous dismay, Fishlegs found most of the caged stalls empty and apparently not recently occupied. Fewer dragons being held here, but also no Tsefan or Phantom hatchlings to bust out. He looked in despondently at the Armorwing as he passed it, as well as the Shovelhelm in the stall adjacent, his heart screaming at him to let them free but his head knowing he couldn't at the current moment, not without risking Tsefan's safety (or his own). A cold anger ran through him at knowing the powerlessness of his position.

 _As soon as we find Tsefan I'm gonna burn this place down myself,_ he thought. _Keeping dragons as slaves; they probably wouldn't leave even if given the chance, accustomed to this place as they are._

"Fishlegs, might have something up top here," Jake's voice whispered quietly over the Viking's com set, shaking him out of his thoughts. "There's a partial base map here, and some lists I can't read; they're in runes."

"Be right there," Fishlegs answered, looking around for an actual stairway up and heading for it. He signaled Meatlug to fly up to the next level with him too, since they were almost all up there now. The loud buzzing noise of her wings made him wince as she lifted off and puttered up, as well as the 'whump!' of her landing, but after a panicked moment of silence and staring down at the raptors for warning cues, he was relieved to know that apparently nobody had been close enough to hear them. He finished his journey upward to join the rattlesnake and Nightmare up where they were standing (or coiled, in Jake's case) near a desk nestled amongst the stalls on the second level, and signaled to raptors to continue keeping watch as he leaned over the papers strewn across the surface.

"So, what do we have here?" he asked rhetorically, picking up the map Jake had mentioned and poring over it. It was a labyrinth of corridors within the island itself apparently, and several switchbacks lay between where they were and the "planning rooms" where Fishlegs would bet Viggo or his seconds in command would most likely be. Another live quarry store was located nearer to where the other half of their group had landed, and he assumed they were probably in the process of attempting to check that space out.

"That might be useful later," he muttered, setting the map aside and picking up a list, one of many laid across the desk. "Hmm…looks more like a Slavic text than runes, Jake; this is talking about a trade with fur trappers. Ugh, Fenrir would be furious over this one. Uh…" Fishlegs picked up another, "…yep, dragon parts, live dragons, weapons trades, and…oh, this one is different."

"Why, what's that one say?" Embron queried, craning his neck around to look at the paper.

"Oh, you won't be able to read this one either, Embron," Fishlegs said apologetically. "It looks like a data spreadsheet; title is about some sort of serum trial. Doesn't say what the serum is or does though, but every column ends in 'successful'. Could be related to the dragonroot arrows they use, or maybe even the feral dragon issue, I'd bet." He folded and pocketed the paper; one of many likely wouldn't be missed right away. "Tsefan's not in here though, so I'm thinking it's best if we keep moving. That map said there was, uh, like a commons area in that direction," he pointed vaguely, "and herb and spice stores and the like in that direction there, probably the better bet if we don't want to be seen."

"Great, I'll go first," Jake decided, sliding past and heading in the direction Fishlegs had last gestured. The others hesitantly followed suit.

The corridor quickly left the reach of sunlight, but torches lined the path to provide illumination. Not like the dark would have bothered the rattler as he scented out traces of people, dragons, and the trade items the hunters had packed along and stored away, but it helped those following behind him. Several times they stopped cold, pressing against the walls or around corners as footsteps approached and then walked past, trying to stay undetected, but they had yet to actually run into anyone.

Then Jake slowed, tongue flickering madly as he crossed the path of a scent he knew he'd detected before, somewhat recently. He turned his head in its direction, eyes focusing hard on the tunnel ahead.

"What is it?" Phoenix queried softly, voicing the question everyone else was thinking.

Jake didn't answer right away, tongue still flickering a mile a minute as he pondered the trace, but when he did he turned around to fix them with a serious stare. "This hall smells like that Phantom dragon did," he said, "but younger. I think either the eggs were brought down this way recently, or they hatched and the babies were carted down."

"They could be keeping them the same place as Tsefan," Quicksilver mused. "We should check it out. Fishlegs?"

"Uh, I think I agree," the Viking said hesitantly, before squaring his shoulders. "Lead the way, Jake."

The rattlesnake nodded and dropped to the floor again, scenting out the trail. He felt no vibrations other than the footsteps of the others behind him, giving reassurance they were still decently avoiding the risk of running into anyone. Considering how much deeper they were heading into the island catacombs, and how that would limit the number of escape routes they had available to them, that was a necessity.

Jake's more optimistic outlook rapidly fell flat however as he rounded a corner, about to continue toward the door at the end, when both his tongue and infrared vision picked up the presence of a well-armored guardsman leaning casually against the wall in front of the entrance, staring directly down at him. The snake froze, but not soon enough to prevent Fishlegs from coming around the corner as well, stumbling as he tried to avoid stepping on the snake's tail (and only partly succeeding).

"Agh! Jake, what…?" Fishlegs began to exclaim, before he trailed off as his own eyes found what the snake was staring at. "Oh. Shoot."

"I was kind of wonderin' how long one o' yer group would take t' make their way down here," the guard said with a chuckle in his voice, the sudden speech making Jake reflexively hiss and whip his gun in the man's direction. The guard only laughed more at the reaction and held up a hand. "Now now, ya know it ain't wise ta do anythin' to me," he said. "Viggo told us all about what happens if ya hurt one o' us or mess with the goods. Somethin' about a little dragon getting the repercussions?"

The knowledge that he couldn't well just pull the trigger and be done dealing with this stumbling block burned at Jake, but the man was right. "What the hell do you want?" he growled instead, lowering his weapon only slightly as he grew in size, more comfortable for looking the other in the eye.

The guard shrugged; if he was bothered by the suddenly much larger snake in the tunnel he didn't show it. "Ain't what I want that matters," he drawled. "'S what the boss wants. Viggo's been expectin' the lot o' you; wants ta have a nice little chat. So you'd better follow along, and behave."

* * *

They thought they'd gotten to exactly where they needed to be, about to slip into the quarry room and out without setting off any alarms. That last hall had been empty, Judy had planted herself at the nearest intersection to act as a sentry while Nick picked the lock on the door, and Holly had a hand on one of the darts in her belt just in case someone was waiting when the door finally swung open. Nick could swear that he'd smelled the recent scents of several dragons or dragon parts coming from within, but all that greeted them had been a single stack of old, tanned Raincutter hides, prepared at least months if not years ago and possibly taken from animals that hadn't been alive at any recent point before harvest.

That, and a young woman with hard eyes, black hair, and full armor sitting casually in the corner behind the door, looking at them like she'd awaited their arrival for hours, which Hiccup was starting to think was entirely possible.

"Never mind me, I'm not goin to try to harm you," she said in an unfamiliar, lilting accent, standing up and approaching them as they stared at her like deer caught on a busy highway (if deer could brandish weapons while staring at an oncoming truck), "but don't get any ideas of trying to pull anything over me either. Viggo's waiting for you though, and it's probably best you don't keep him loitering around too much longer; I hear he's got some very important matters to discuss with you." With an almost sarcastically elegant gesture, she swept her hand along in a motion for them to follow her, and walked out the door they'd all just burst in through, entirely unflinching at the notion of stepping between a pair of Nadders and a Night Fury.

Toothless looked on after her, a touch flabbergasted, before turning his head and silently questioning Hiccup. The Viking didn't have any answers either though, only able to offer a helpless shrug as he started after the woman.

"Never mind being on guard for us; Viggo knew exactly when we'd show up and where we'd go looking," he muttered darkly, before he turned discreetly to the others in his team. "Everyone's fields on? And Nick, if you've got any ideas for a contingency plan I'd love to hear it right now."

"Uh, afraid not Hiccup," the fox answered sullenly, double checking that his barrier field was in fact activated. "He knew, so…I think best if we hear out whatever he's going to say first before trying to skedaddle."

"If he thinks he's got us cornered he could let something slip," Judy whispered in a hopeful tone. "But otherwise…ugh, we can't do _anything,_ can we? Not without Tsefan getting it in return."

Silence fell as they followed the huntress, feeling like a flock of sheep being corralled in a pen. Viggo had to know that they would have no issue enacting self-defense if necessary, but anything offensive would come back to bite them quickly. At least they had their barriers and suits; if Viggo turned anything on them, they would at least be able to run without being hindered.

The corridor they were led down eventually opened out onto a wide platform at the front of the base, overlooking the docks below and ocean beyond. The woman turned to stroll down the side of the hill to another pair of doors, pausing as she watched a second hunter lead Fishlegs and his posse up to the platform as well. Fishlegs locked eyes with Hiccup, the two sharing the same discomfited thoughts and shock at seeing the other being led around, before their guides stepped forward simultaneously, swinging the doors open.

"Dragons stay out here just in case," Hiccup decided, "save you, Toothless. Something goes wrong, we need to be able to get to the air quickly." The other dragons nodded, planting themselves around the doors and glaring at the hunters walking away as the others cautiously stepped inside.

The open, circular space was relatively sparsely furnished, a handful of chairs lined along the walls no doubt for meetings and the like, and a small number of both marked and unmarked maps of several world regions were tacked up across the walls. A single long, wooden table ran across the far side of the room, behind which were several stacks of boxes and crates, and a single, occupied chair.

Viggo looked no different than he had when Hiccup had last seen the man, his face a blank, unreadable expression as he pored over a parchment laid out in front of him. He practically ignored them as they walked in and spread about the room, each and every one of them with their hands (or tails, in Jake's case) a fraction of an inch from their weapons. But when the man spoke, it was anything but ignorance of their presence.

"I doubt I have to remind you, any actions you attempt to take against me will be promptly returned in favor to your young dragon, or perhaps also to the Phantom hatchlings I hear you're searching for now as well," Viggo drawled evenly, slowly looking up toward Hiccup. "And yes, I know you were on that island, as you have been several dozen others by now. You're all a clever bunch, but you've shown your hand enough times that I can read you three moves ahead."

The hunter then set the parchment aside and turned to regard the rest of his visitors, a slight smirk showing but still no other emotions present. His gaze swept over the group, but lingered on Nick for just a moment longer. The fox caught a flash of… _something_ pass through the man's eyes, and he shivered, a deathly cold sensation coming over him as if Viggo had opened him up and read him like a lost diary. The vulpine profiler in turn, however, remained clueless on their opponent's thoughts. That look…like he knew Nick's very history, and was going to play him by it. Unconsciously, Nick stepped closer toward Judy, his tail coiling protectively around behind her.

"I must admit, I'm a little disappointed too as I half expected you all to end up here far sooner than you have," Viggo chuckled, leaning back in his chair as if he couldn't hold a care in the world. "On the other hand, you're a headache and I'd also hoped you'd run around on a wild goose chase for quite some time longer, so it balances out in the end. Here we are, face to face to settle this madness you insist on dragging out."

"That _we_ insist, Viggo?" Toothless snarled. "You are the one who _kidnapped my son_ , who holds him against us! _Where is he?!_ "

"Oh, tsk, tsk, what a temper Toothless," Viggo tutted, wagging a finger. "After all this, you think I would simply roll over and give up by bargaining piece when I pinpointed you all dead to rights in my own base? Not a chance. Those couple of years ago I came to offer a deal to you all so that we could avoid warfare, and you threw it in my face. My livelihood, the network my family has built for decades, and the culture that lives around it, at the threat of ruin thanks to your 'perfect world' idealism." He stood up abruptly, making everyone's hands itch for their weapons, and turned to one of the boxes behind him, lifting its lid carefully. "A threat like that forces me to take drastic actions in return. We could have been neutral parties to each other, in our own separate corners of the world. You could have held your peace in your archipelago and left us to our business. Instead, the ships that sailed these waters risked destruction at the fires of you and your allies, so I required a powerful card to hold against you for their safe passage. Tsefan would be unharmed too, so long as you didn't interfere."

The box was closed, and Viggo turned around to hold up a tiny vial. Inside, a silvery blue liquid oozed back and forth. "The contents of this vial are worth a fortune," he explained. "Tide Glider salivary extract, potent healing properties particularly against chemical burns and lacerations. Like all animals, dragons are here for the use of humanity, to be harvested in one fashion or another, and the process could be straightforward sustainable were it not for meddlers like you who force us to take more drastic measures to procure our materials. Instead, to avoid retaliation by other people we have to breed distrust, prove to the world that you can never befriend these reptiles, not fully or permanently. A mountain more work for the same payout, because you can't stick to your own business!" He flipped the box lid open violently and dropped the vial inside before slamming it closed, huffing heavily. Then, he calmed, letting out a slow breath.

"But never mind that," Viggo muttered, voice perfectly flat and calculating once again as if a light switch had been flipped in him. "I have resources, connections, knowledge about this world at my fingertips that you could barely guess at. A project that has been decades in the making, almost ready for full execution that would ensure the Coalition's place in world trade and name is at hand. Take one dragon and hold him for collateral, and it would all be fine.

"But you could not accept that I am a man of my promised word, apparently, could you?" The hunter chuckled. "No, despite my clear warnings you insisted on rooting your noses through my business anyway. You interrupted preparations for Frey Drekki to be converted into what would have been so useful a port, disturbed my men at the northern tradeway to get there, and your friends elsewhere in the world are being equally if not more taxing. Rome holds us in suspicion, our trade in the Orient is now on uncertain grounds, and it will take weeks at best to rebuild those bridges after you are moved out of the way again." He reached into his pocket, drawing out a small, cloth-bound bundle and setting it across the table. "I am a man of my word, to every end, Hiccup. Take this, I insist, and know that I mean what I say."

Hiccup stared at the bundle in trepidation, before glancing at the others for a second opinion. Astrid held no answer though, nor did Holly or Fishlegs, and Nick and Judy were still busier trying to read Viggo than anything else. Swallowing hard, he gingerly reached forward and picked up the bundle with care in case it was a nasty trap, slowly beginning to unwrap it.

Nick watched out of the corner of his eye as layer after layer of cloth unraveled, before a scent slammed into his nose, one that unsettled him far more than he already was. It smelled like Toothless, but different, mingled with the metallic earthen bite of old blood.

"Hiccup, wait!" he called out, holding up a paw, but he was a second too late. The last cloth layer fell open, tinged rust by its contents, and Hiccup froze solid at the sight.

It was a lone, small black-gray scale, the edges spackled with dried shreds of tissue and discolored by the long-dry blood that had spread from behind it.

Hiccup's stomach churned, but he couldn't look away, nor could any of the others once they caught a glimpse of the object. They all knew exactly what it was, what it meant: Viggo had held to every word of his promise, and wasn't picky about what he called 'meddling' in his plans. It was also proof that Tsefan was within reach enough for the man to call out the recompense requests with ease, for all the good that did them now.

"I told you I would not kill him, but for every instance in which you hinder me, I give back to you some part of him," Viggo said lowly, snapping them out of their stupor. Hiccup dropped the cloth and scale like it was a hot coal, and Toothless let loose a vicious snarl, his spinal crests splitting and the scales around them beginning to glow.

"Ah, ah, Viggo warned, knowing what was running through the dragon's head and seeing Astrid and Holly also reaching for weapons. "He's still alive, which means I can yet order for more done to him than one torn scale. I already have, actually, since you didn't stop after messing with Frey Drekki, but I can still bring about more. Try to cross me off, and others will take my place and continue the job, ensuring your little Night Fury suffers experiences far worse than simple death."

He was right. They all hated that he was right. Begrudgingly, Holly let go of the knife handle in her grip, as Astrid did the same with her axe handle. Viggo nodded and turned to look once more at Nick and Judy, though once again he focused more on the former.

"Another term I wish to discuss with you all as well, while I have you here," he mused. "Did you actually go all the way to Narnia to pick up these two just to try and spite me, or were they brought to you?"

The question made them stumble for a moment, all shocked that Viggo knew the name of that country that so few in the Eastern world were aware of. "Y-you know about Narnia?" Fishlegs stuttered, to which Viggo only laughed.

"Oh come now, Fishlegs, haven't you figured it out yet?" he taunted. "Bookworm you are but you're sorely lacking on worldly experience to piece your knowledge together. We hunters are widely traveled; not everyone is as in the dark about the lands to the west as your average snooty European. Many valuables arise from that place, and it would be foolish not to set up trades with the people there and profit from it. Cinder pines, Narnian clove, Calormen tapestry…" he trailed off for a moment, a glint in his eyes as he leaned toward Nick, "…unusual animals that many would pay a high price just to see, or perhaps have as a pet, or pelt. Foxes don't get quite so large elsewhere, and I must say their fur is one of the most sought after on many markets."

Nick swallowed hard, paling under his fur as he stepped back slightly. His reaction earned another strange, unsettling grin from Viggo.

"Don't be such a pussy, Nick," Holly reprimanded, though through her voice Nick could hear her discomfort with the suggestion as well, compounding that of the sight of Tsefan's scale. "He-he can't touch you."

It didn't leave him too reassured, but Nick took the chance offered to try and use a bit of humor to calm himself down. "Did…did you just call me a cat?" he accused, looking at her as best he could without letting the hunter out of his field of view.

"Cat or coward," Holly quipped back. "He tries to skin you and I'll do the same to him."

"Madam, at least get canine versus feline in order before attempting to insult me."

"Ahem," Viggo cleared his throat, turning the skewed focus back to him. "You're right; perhaps trying to sell you off would be too much of a task, _Nick_ ," he jeered, turning to another crate. "But, I don' really need to either. You and your rabbit friend there are far more useful here and now anyway."

As the man lifted yet another vial out of this second crate, Nick felt that cold dread that had hit him earlier return with a vengeance, as if the temperature in the room had dropped to zero and his suit was doing nothing to protect him from it. Viggo turned to them, swirling the deep indigo-purple liquid inside the vial for all to see, and looked lazily at the Narnians.

"Tell me, do you recognize this at all?" he asked nonchalantly. When no answer was immediately received, he smirked. "No? Oh dear. I had hoped for better from native officers, especially so soon after that fiasco my contacts tell me about." He replaced the vial, before reaching in and pulling out a small, dry and shriveled flower, with five petals and a faded color reminiscent of the liquid. "How about this, then?"

"Oh my God," Judy whispered, eyes widening. "You…that can't be…"

"So you _do_ recognize this then, hmm?" Viggo chuckled, also placing the flower back in the crate. Then he moved to a third, lifting the lid off and pulling out a carefully pruned bush in full flower, the small plant covered in large, bright violet blooms. "Perhaps just as a reassurance you're not confusing things then."

They knew; Nick and Judy _definitely_ knew. Neither of them would ever be able to forget the appearance of the plant entirely responsible for not only the explosive start to their careers but half the reason they'd come out here at all after running into dead ends back home for so long.

"Wildwood," Nick whispered. "You have…you're growing wildwood."

"So you're the one behind that trade?!" Judy snapped, her shock turning to livid fury as her hands clenched by her sides. "You're the one they've been trading this out with? It all makes sense now, doesn't it? No weapons in the Calormen ranks, nor any odd drugs used by them from it, and no stores for attacks on us. But here: the crazed dragons, no clues to what caused it and no one around here having ever seen this before. Of course they wouldn't have, because the cause doesn't come from here. You poisoned them with wildwood extract!"

"Who, wait, Judy what's going on here?" Hiccup asked, holding up his hands.

Judy turned to explain, stabbing an accusatory finger at Viggo. "He's the other half of the reason we came here to help you," she said, "a smuggling ring in Narnia we couldn't find the end to. You remember the Night Howlers from the movie? Wildwood's the real thing, just as potent if not more so, and the hunters have been poisoning the dragons with it!"

"Isn't it just beautiful when all the pieces of a puzzle fall together?" Viggo taunted, unfazed by the burning glares as he put the plant back in its crate. "Turns out that heat doesn't ruin the toxin, so I can boil off the extracts as long as I need to, concentrating it to whatever level I desire, for any size dragon. It doesn't wear off, either, and the plant even grows splendidly around the Mediterranean and in the Orient. And, it's the perfect thing to prove to everyone that _animals_ can't be trusted as allies; if a little plant can even make them turn on each other, what else just might make them turn on us, too?"

"So it's made clear: you are the reason I had t' put down that Whispering Death," Jake growled, tail rattling away. "You poisoned her, to make her an enemy she never needed to be."

"On the contrary, one less 'dangerous monster' to endanger humanity, as the rest of the world will see it," Viggo countered, before shrugging. "It's only a shame she couldn't be put to use then; their spines are highly valued, as are the jaw bands their teeth are set in." He reached into his pocket as if resting his hand, looking at them like they were just another insignificant nuisance again. "I hope it proves another point too though: I have resources, and I am capable of turning you against each other without so much as a second thought. For all your great gifts and powerful allies, you wouldn't be able to prevent it."

"What are you rambling on about now?" Astrid growled, hand inching toward her axe again. Reflexively she grabbed the handle as Viggo casually pulled something out of the pouch hanging off his other pocket and pointed it at her and Hiccup, but relaxed upon seeing something that looked like an ancient dart gun. If the hunter shot it at any of them, the projectile would move too fast to get through their barriers. "Yeah, nice try, Viggo," she sneered. "What do you think that toy could actually"-

Viggo swung the weapon away from the two Vikings, and Astrid was given a better view of the whole contraption: built of hardwood and iron, with a spring mechanism to launch the dart itself inside the barrel, but more importantly, embedded within the back of the stock was a small, glowing violet gemstone. The warrioress barely had the time to register the crystal's presence, and feel ice pierce her stomach, before Viggo pulled the trigger.

A purple flash raced across the gun and haloed out around it, and the dart it held flew through the air. Nick didn't even have the time to register the shot, let alone the fact that there was no corresponding red flash emanating from his barrier to thwart the attack, before a stinging pain erupted in his neck. He yelped and dropped back, paws flying to his neck, and yanked the dart out to stare at it incredulously.

"Nick!" Judy yelled, spinning and grabbing the paw with the dart held in it to examine the steel tube and the needle on the end. The faint violet stain that remained on it was all she needed to see. "No. Oh no."

"You assumed too much, Astrid," Viggo drawled, sliding his weapon away again. "You've grown complacent and too reliant on your defenses to remember that for every move there is a counter. Your friend Aurianna kept most of her special weapons for herself and that crazed woman that she worked for, but every now and then she also sold a handful to Jezebel's allies or resources, and threw out what she thought were failed experiments. You have your magical fields that save you from attacks, but with one shot I can breach them, and that is not the only weapon of its caliber that I have in my possession. I've had men working on those 'failed stones' and the good ones we acquired for years to see just exactly what they all would do." He crossed his arms and glared at them. "Your friend there will be in a bad way in just a few minutes, so it would likely be wisest if you attempt to find him some help sooner rather than later. Concentrated enough, wildwood will not only turn him into the savage animal he was meant to be, but in a couple of days it will turn fatal. You'd better forget about me, and get moving; you won't find much help back in Narnia either."

"You monster!" Judy yelled, holding onto Nick as her heart pounded. "Come on, come on, we need to go! Nick, hold on, okay?" She began shuffling them toward the door, Nick only able to focus on the shock of the pain emanating from his neck as he was led away, his mind racing over the implications. He'd been hit with wildwood; Judy wouldn't be safe around him soon, or any of the others. But he didn't want to let go of her either.

Viggo had singled him out and shot him too. Why him? Why not a dragon?

 _He looked like he knew me…_

Holly, Astrid, and Fishlegs flanked the Narnian pair and led them out and toward the dragons, but Hiccup, the raptors, and Jake held back, the former feeling lost and wanting an answer while the latter raised his gun in threat. Viggo only waved them away though. "I'll repeat myself: you can't hurt me without repercussions, and you don't have long before he loses it," the hunter toned. "And I have much to do. You'd better get going, and another warning: if you return, I will not hold back from making every one of you suffer. A crazed handful of Riders won't be getting in the way any more than the savage dragons we've created."

"Then mark my words, Viggo!" Astrid spat back over her shoulder as she paced rapidly toward Thorn. "This isn't over, not by a long shot! We'll fix this and be back for you!"

"Those who have already lost tend to say that the most often," Viggo tossed back. "Usually, it is."

He was right, at least about the former part: Nick was now a priority before he became a danger, and they had answers, but not in the manner they wanted them. The doors to Viggo's room closed behind the raptors as they exited last, and Nara bent down as Judy urged Nick up onto her back before the rabbit followed suit, holding tightly onto the fox.

"We need to get back to Narnia somehow, and immediately," she exclaimed as Holly clipped in, before they all took flight away from the accursed base. "After the fiasco a couple years back we made an antidote stockpile; we can fix this no problem, I'm sure of it!"

"Judy, I don't think we can count on that card," Fishlegs said warily. "Viggo just told us that we won't find help in Narnia. I'm thinking he did something; he wouldn't have used the serum on one of us otherwise, not if fixing it would be that easy."

"I really doubt he could get into the storehouses near the palace," Judy snapped back, though now it was mostly her attempting to reassure herself as Nick fidgeted in her grasp under the pain and worry he was under. Both of them knew what was coming, and they were far enough from any help right then to be able to prevent it altogether. "But…why did he shoot Nick though? Why didn't he shoot one of the dragons, since he's so against them?"

"Making a point," Holly answered softly, looking back at them out of the corner of her eye. Her expression was not comforting. "If he shot a dragon, then it would have been that much harder to make us leave too. He's making a statement: he's got weapons that can get to all of us, protection or not."

"He looked at me like he knew me," Nick said softly. "He picked me right when we came in the room."

"You heard what he said," Holly growled. "He trades for fox pelts, from Narnia. If you've got missing mammal issues he might be why too; you probably reminded him of that, and it would be irony he wouldn't miss for him to shoot another himself." Suddenly her eyes shot open. "Oh! We need to let Aurianna know about this; he has access to weapons she made!"

"One thing at a time!" Hiccup admonished. "Right now, we need to get Nick back and fix this, and call the others; we know what's behind the whole mess now without any doubts. _Then,_ we'll let the other Asgards know and figure out what to do about Viggo's surprise. Judy, Nick, how long before this stuff starts showing symptoms?"

"A couple of minutes, at most," Judy said, almost choking on the words as the implications hit in full. She looked up with panic as Nick hunched over, groaning. The fox could feel his head going numb through the ache that was starting to spread. "If…if Viggo was telling the truth, and the dose was concentrated…w-we might have two, maybe three days before it turns irreversible or fatal. How do we get back fast enough?"

"Tie me up."

Everyone silenced as Nick spoke up, and Judy turned to look at him again, not quite comprehending what he'd said.

"What?" she sputtered. "W-Nick, no"-

"Judy, tie me up!" Nick snapped, barely able to look her in the eye as he said it. "If I go nuts, I could fall off, I could hurt you, Holly, Nara…I won't remember most of it anyway. Tie me up, before I do…urgh…s-something I'll regret!"

His eyes were watering, and it wasn't just from pain. Judy's breath hitched, but she couldn't deny his order. She nodded slowly, reaching forward to grab a rope out of one of the packs on Nara's side before turning to start binding Nick's paws together. Then as he laid down, she lashed him to the saddle so he wouldn't fall off or have leverage to bite or claw.

As she did so, Hiccup began rummaging through his own saddle pack on Toothless, looking for the emergency radio Zipeau had given each of the search parties. Hawken needed to know about this, and get back to Berk immediately so they could find the antidote to fix this before time ran out. "Astrid," he called, "you, me, and Holly will head out to Berk together, since we're the fastest and Nick needs to get back pronto. Everyone else, stay the course and catch up when you can, got it?"

Judy heard the affirmations that followed distantly, too busy focusing on hating having to tie her partner up. As she tightened down the lashings and moved toward Nick's head (it was the last thing she wanted to do, but he would need his mouth closed too), she stopped short at seeing his eyes. There were several pains there: from the injury, from the toxin, his fear of being trussed up like this…muzzling him would be the worst, and Judy didn't know if she could stand doing that to him.

"Nick, I…" she tried to say, but trailed off.

Nick felt his eyes tear up, and struggled to say what he needed to. "Judy, you have to…I…hurting you, or Holly, that would be worse to me, and I can't live with that. Just…do it, okay?"

"What if this is the last chance you'll get to talk though?" the doe suddenly spouted. "I can't just muzzle you!"

Nick didn't respond for a moment, a pang running through him. Maybe Viggo had found a way to make it even more toxic. Maybe a couple of days would be too long. If that was so…

He looked up to Holly with a pained expression. "Then have Holly do it," he said. "Judy, listen…I know you'll get this right, okay?" But I need to…there's something you need to know, first."

"I'm listening," Judy said softly, leaning forward with intent and laying a paw on his shoulder.

Nick took in a breath, feeling his mind starting to blur further already. If it was going to be said, it had to be now. At first, though, he failed to say anything. The second time, he managed a little better, but only just.

"Judy, I…you mean everything to me, and I…I lo"-

A sudden spasm cut him off, and he grit his teeth, willing it to stop. Then he tried to speak again. A chittering yip was all that came out instead.

Judy froze, mind blank as she panicked, and she could only watch in terror as Nick closed his eyes tightly and began to jerk and spasm. "Holly!" she yelled, the teen immediately turning around and taking the rope from her hands as Nick failed to recover again.

"Hold him," the young woman ordered, but Judy didn't move. "Judy! Hold him!"

The rabbit forced herself to act, reaching forward and holding Nick's head still as Holly lashed loops of rope around his snout, tying them tight, and then they both backed off as Nick began to thrash in the limits of his bindings, his sanity starting to wane entirely.

"Judy, listen to me," Holly said sternly. "Don't focus on this; once we get Hawken here it'll be a couple hours, maximum, to set him up in a hospital and then get to Narnia to find the antidote. He'll be fine, and then we'll find Tsefan and give Viggo everything he's earned for this, understand? Nick. Will. Be. Fine."

Judy nodded absently, and only barely noticed them picking up speed as Nara, Thorn, and Toothless rocketed south toward Berk. She was too focused on trying to figure out whatever it was that Nick had been attempting to say, too focused on realizing that she'd failed to tell him what she needed to as well, and she could only stare as Nick slowly stopped thrashing for a moment, having exhausted himself in the struggle to free himself now that he wasn't in control of his own actions.

Then, her breath hitched when he opened his eyes again, and his pupils locked onto her. Those eyes were not Nick; they showed no whites, only green and slit pupils. They were an enraged predator's eyes, watching her, waiting for an opportunity, all traces of her partner erased within.

* * *

 **A/N- Let the first climax begin! Yes, things are going to get chaotic and go south really, really quick now. Viggo's not one to pull punches when he doesn't need to, and it wasn't a mild dose he shot Nick with...**

 **As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews, and bonus points for anyone who can tell me the meaning of this chapter's title!**

 **Also, keep an eye out in the coming weeks: as the taxonomist I am I've seen a couple of missing links in the spread of dragon species in this series and in HTTYD, so a few new ideas for other species have come into my head. As such, there will be at least two more entries into the Book of Dragons coming up, unique to the Closed Doors series, and hopefully you'll find them as interesting as I do.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	26. Chapter 25: Long Way From Home

**A/N-Gosh, what, 5 or 6 weeks? Yeah, I'm late. Blame final assignment due dates and the start of peak season for my job...but we're back!**

 **For any who were curious (but did not give a guess), the translation of last chapter's title is roughly "Crossed Lines." For those just here to read, well...**

* * *

Chapter 25

Long Way From Home

/

 _History dealt you horrid cards_

 _And laughed at your attempts to thwart them_

 _Tossed away from family dear_

 _And buried under wicked shards_

 _You tried to fight them even then_

 _But you saw all hope as lost_

 _For the poisoned current carried you_

 _To be mired in deception's fen_

 _The months dragged by_

 _And then the years as well_

 _There was a purpose for it all_

 _But you could not see it as you cried_

 _You're a long, long way from home_

 _And nothing spoke of where you'd go_

 _But time was nigh for your life to change_

 _The cycle broken, soon free to roam_

 _-0-_

For purposes of arousing the least amount of suspicion possible should we run across the Coalition, it was eventually decided that it would be only me, Fenrir, and Tan Qiao as our guide who would return to the location that the guardsmen claimed they had found. Should any of the hunters show up while we were there come the next morning, a wolf and a local would be far less shocking or likely to raise alarms than unfamiliar dragon species or dragon riders would (I could disappear with ease unlike the rest of our group, so my presence would be of little concern no matter). Plus, a small number always traveled faster and got into more places than all of us together did.

The rest of the gang, meanwhile, would wait back in Láng Chéng, and Ember and Amethyst in particular had offered to help repair what had been destroyed in my temper-driven outburst.

A shot of regret ran through me again when we left at thinking about that event; I should have known better waited for the others at the Alagaesian village, especially knowing how I acted under anger at times. There was little point dwelling on it now though, as it had already happened and I'd at least returned what I could to Ashira, who had also in turn at least grudgingly accepted to look past it. We had all realized we'd been played, and we all knew we'd done stupid things in response; a giant mess was the only logical conclusion. Now was the time to move on, find those who were truly at the root of the problem, and sort this fiasco out with finality.

I shook off the feeling and focused forward, watching mountains and valleys lazily pass by beneath me as I sailed south. Turning my head, I caught some amusement at seeing the stamped-down edge of panic seeping into Qiao's face. It had taken a full fifteen minutes to convince him that it would be best to fly to save time, and then another five to assure him that I would not bite or buck him off when he rode with Fenrir on my back to our destination. The guy could walk amongst animals far more "wild" than any of our dragons and not flinch, could run head first into a fight as guns went off around him or swords swung at his neck, but once heights were added to the mix everything tough about him threw itself out the window.

"So, how far along is this place?" I asked casually, catching his attention.

Qiao swallowed and cleared his throat, pointing shakily toward the smattering of lights right on the coast that I knew to be the trading port. "There's the market," he stammered, "and…uh, j-just a league or t-two further south, past the next ridge and inland a ways. It-it's in the side of the valley, in a thicket." A sudden wind gust caused us to wobble slightly, and he clenched the strap I was wearing for him to hold onto violently. "Oooohhh…please tell me we don't have to fly much longer."

"Either I fly calmly, or I fly fast. If you hate this so much, I can guarantee you'd vomit on the latter. Neither would I enjoy Fenrir's claws in my back trying to hold on."

Qiao let out another groan as I banked inland slightly to aim for the location he'd roughly pointed out, and then he bent forward to close his eyes and press his forehead against the makeshift saddle.

A thick fog was rolling down the sides of the valley as we descended, blocking the early morning sun and helping cover our presence. I landed in a clearing near the most prominent thicket of trees that I could see in the area, bending down and letting Fenrir jump off first. Then we both watched Qiao slide awkwardly off and stumble onto his feet. I demorphed and stored the strap away as he regained his bearings, and then he gestured us to follow him, keeping silent and low to the ground as we moved through the trees. There was an actual path running along the valley floor, but following it would have been the best way to ensure us running into someone if the hunters were in fact nearby presently. Instead, we tracked it from the trees, letting it lead us to keep our heading in the undergrowth.

Halfway through the thicket Qiao held up his hand, slowing us to a halt, before turning and pointing slightly off to our right. Another path meandered by, this one stemming off the main road and so slight in appearance that most would miss it if they weren't looking for it, or standing right on top. It cut through the grove to our right, and seemed to run almost straight into the side of the slope before disappearing.

"Hideout's right in there," Qiao said with certainty, walking forward again. Fenrir and I followed, keeping our ears primed in case of any disturbances behind us should anyone be approaching. Once close enough to the face of the slope, the entrance became clear now that we knew where to look, and what to look for: the slanted door was covered by leaves and small plants, built up to look like the uneven ground itself but standing apart just enough to detect the outline.

"And how exactly did you find this?" Fenrir asked softly, looking the expertly hidden entrance over with perplexity.

"Sheer dumb luck, mostly," Qiao admitted. "We happened to find the path and followed it; luckily when no one else was around. Took one of my men actually tripping on the door to realize it was there after the wolves tracked a scent here."

"Okay," I said softly, "Qiao, stay out here and keep watch; if anyone or anything approaches give three hard raps against the door and we'll be ready to move out. Fenrir, stand by while I open the door."

Fenrir nodded and stepped back as I morphed to Shadow, melting into the ground around us and spreading out around the door. Opening it wasn't really the issue so much as I wanted to do so without risking making a lot of noise (and if you're going to ask why I didn't just transport Fenrir that way, unless it was necessary everyone had mentioned it was an unpleasant ride; plus, if there was anything inside we wanted to carry out I didn't want to risk the transport messing it up), so with as much care as I could I slipped coils of dark matter around the hinges and gears I found to muffle the noise they made, and lifted up.

The door swung up and outward, revealing a matching uneven, sloping path into the side of the hill, and within, at least a faint glimmer of light was visible either from a torch or perhaps a skylight within. Fenrir wasted no time and stepped inside quickly, sniffing out any trace of recent human habitation, and I closed the door behind him before materializing and demorphing again. Though, I kept strong my nocturnal vision and sense of smell to trace what was going on up ahead, otherwise I would have been walking almost blind. There was light, but barely enough for human eyes in the corridor.

As we moved deeper, following the path as it wound slightly off to one side, the first thing that I noticed was the smell: that odd, distinct chemical bite that had been present up at that abandoned fortress far to the north, only this time it was almost entirely bound together with floral scents: the fragrance of a sweet flower, nectar, and the touch of earthy, leafy undertones. Additionally, another scent was riding underneath all that: familiar and mammalian, almost identifiable but that I couldn't place. For a moment I chalked it up to perhaps Fenrir nearby in the cramped space, who hadn't bathed in a while as with many of us, but his scent was different and this one was permeated into the walls.

The area got lighter as we moved in deeper, oddly, but our confusion at that was fully dispelled when we turned a corner and entered into a larger carved room lined with lamps and additionally illuminated from above by narrow, carved passages filtering light from outside.

::This…certainly wasn't what I was expecting,:: Fenrir muttered in Dragonese, looking around with awe at the sight. Several tables lined the space in rows, each with a setup of a different sort: one covered in boxes full of what looked like herbal materials, the next a set of boilers hooked to metal cylinders no doubt designed to hold in high pressure, and the one after that covered in primitive glass and metal beakers and tubes, each capped in small pipes whose ends dripped into a wine-barrel style container of steel. The wall to the right of the tables held racks from which several types of clothing made of some sort of hard leather-like substance hung, and makeshift goggles dangled alongside them. None of them looked to be sized for an adult human though, furthering our confusion and increasing concern.

Ahead of us across the tables, the far wall possessed a pair of adjacent desks, similar to those in Hiccup's room or all over Fishlegs' house. They were covered in charcoal pencils, rice paper and parchments, and the far end of the wall beyond them had a single, doorless opening leading further into the bowels of the hill. At the angle we were standing it was darker within too, so that I could not make out what might have been beyond. Most odd within the room though was a system of metal tracks suspended above our heads, crisscrossing in a pattern that followed the spaces between the tables but not very far into the corridor Fenrir and I were standing in. They did, however, extend into the darkened back space beyond.

::It looks like a chemist's lab,:: I mused, cautiously stepping with extreme care over to inspect the table holding the distillation bats. Inside were stains of some sort of indigo-shaded liquid, and it was wafting upward once again with that same floral-chemical scent I had yet to identify. More evidence for which my suspicions were valid though.

Fenrir padded over to the other end of the room, peering into the herbal boxes. ::These look familiar somehow,:: he said. ::I must assume whatever this is may be toxic if they're hiding it way out here. Think it could be…::

I looked up as he trailed off, noting the wolf's focus turned underneath the table, toward the wall beyond him. ::Oh,:: he said shortly, worriedly. ::Uh, Hawken, we may have our answer.::

I stood up straight at that and made my way quickly around the tables over to see what he'd found. The room bent around a corner that wasn't visible from the entry corridor, concealing a space that looked less like a chemistry lab and more like an engineer's workshop and smithy, with molds and tools for building and crafting with metals and glass. What was being built, or at least the most obvious product, lay in dozens of rows on a shelf along the wall: hundreds, maybe thousands of small metal darts, each tipped with a needle and armed with a spring-loaded mechanism for injection upon impact.

The nearest column to us were darker than the rest, and as I picked one up to inspect it I realized why: the sides were semi-translucent, made out of a plastic-like substance rather than metal. Within these was the same deep hued liquid that had been staining the vats nearby. Once filled, this would be an army's worth of projectiles, and already there were a couple hundred filled and ready for their purpose.

::I'll bet my second favorite set of armor that this is directly connected to the feral dragon problems,:: Fenrir whispered, stepping forward as well to take a closer look at the dart I held. Unfortunately as he did so, he accidentally rubbed up against the nearest table, and a metal mug that had been sitting on the edge teetered and fell off, hitting the floor with a disturbingly loud clang. Both of us left the ground in shock and winced at the sudden noise, turning simultaneously toward the dark corridor further in with fear that we'd alerted someone. I hadn't smelled any people within, at least not recently, and neither had Fenrir or he'd have said something, but we didn't want to take any chances.

When nothing happened for another minute, the two of us let out sighs of relief and turned to regard the layout of the dart army in front of us again. ::Perhaps we can snag one of these and take it back to Xi'nai and Ashira, show them what we found,:: Fenrir suggested. ::If it's the cause, perhaps they have healers that can find an antid-::

He stopped speaking abruptly when both of our ears picked up on the sound that wafted out of the far corridor, something akin to a rolling wheel or a ball sliding down a chute. We froze again, heads whipping toward the opening, and our eyes widened as the noise unquestionably became clearer, indicating an approach of something in our direction.

::Back to the entry hall,:: I whispered, and Fenrir nodded agreement. Quickly we both dashed for the tunnel we'd come in through, backing up far enough so that we would not immediately be visible to whoever came out of that corner of the room, and waited in silence. Stupidly however, I failed to dematerialize, leaving one more object at risk of being spotted if we hadn't gone far enough.

Soon enough a voice spoke up, though in the Mandarin tongue rather than one I understood, and I was forced to look to Fenrir for a translation.

"Xīn tàozhuāng shàngwèi zhǔnbèi hǎo, duìbùqǐ (New set is not ready, I'm sorry)," it said in a tone that seemed eerily faimiliar, the source entering the room we had just been in. As it did, I saw a rope swing in attached to a rolling pulley that skittered along the maze of metal tracks overhead. Thankfully, Fenrir got my look and automatically translated in quiet Dragonese for me, so I did not remain in the dark. "Xiānhuā bǐ píngcháng gānzào, xìtǒng bù huì shēngwēn (Flowers were drier than usual, and the system would not heat up for)…"

The rope halted in the center of the room as the voice trailed off in confusion, but the owner of said voice was still hidden behind a table and the equipment upon it. Whoever it was, they were short.

"Ni hao?" they said again (that one not needing translation), stepping just a little further forward and finally revealing why they were short enough to have been hidden entirely behind a rather low table.

At my first good look at them too, I had to force myself to bite my tongue in order to avoid blurting out a shocked, "Nick?!"

It was not Nick, but the similarity was impossible to miss: a Narnian fox, a little over four feet tall with red-orange fur fading into burnt brown and black tones on his extremities. This fox however was a touch more heavyset and also had prominent silver color speckled in his fur from age or stress, or likely both. He wore little more than the rag version of an eastern robe outfit, pale tan and torn (and obviously washed by hand hundreds of times as threadbare as it was growing). The rope attached to the tracks above him was also tied to a harness cinched around his torso, and his eyes were a piercing deep green not dissimilar to either my own normal shade or Nick's, though darker. They were darkened further still by an emotional shade too, resignation to the position he was in.

Then, his eyes refocused and took on a distinctly confounded expression, which quickly turned to wary and defensive, and I realized too late in my own surprise that he'd turned our way. Foxes have better vision for dark places than people, and I was leaning out more than far enough for him to spot me.

"Crap."

"Nǐ shì shuí (Who are you)?!" he snapped, dropping into a defensive stance and grabbing a metal bar off the nearest table. Clearly, he knew he wasn't going to get far if he ran, tied up to the pulley as he was, though the underlying fear in his voice also spoke volumes of how little leverage he had with his makeshift weapon, and he knew it.

It was too late to hide myself, and seeing the condition of the fox I got the sense that this was not the place he wanted to be let alone defend, so I held up a placating hand both to the fox and to Fenrir who had stepped into view too and was beginning to raise his own hackles. Getting into a brawl would help no one here, least of us; we were in a place run by hunters after all, and there had been no sign of Tsefan.

"I…don't speak Mandarin," I said slowly, hoping he might understand and watching the fox's eyes widen as I did so. "Do you understand Common tongue?"

For a moment I couldn't read how he would react. Surprised, wary eyes flicked between us for several moments, from me to Fenrir and back (though he fixated more on Fenrir, apparent larger predator as he was), before he seemed to decide provoking a fight at least would not be beneficial and relaxed, if only slightly. He opened his mouth to speak again, but at first only a garbled mess of letters came out. A clearing of the throat, and he tried again.

"I…I h-have not h-heard this la-language for years," he rasped softly and with a twisted accent from disuse, looking over us with perplexion. "You were n-not sent by t-the hunters?" Focusing more intently on Fenrir again, he added, "You haf-have a wolf with you."

"We are not from Láng Chéng either, if you wonder," Fenrir said flatly, startling the fox again and making him raise the bar up in front of him once more. "We come from far west of here, friend of Vikings, dragons, and those of Narnia."

The fox's reaction to that last word was instantaneous and pervasive, his eyes flying open in shock and the bar in his grip clattering to the ground. Stumbling back against the desk behind him on weakened legs, he pointed a shaky finger at us failing words momentarily. "Y-you…" he breathed unsteadily, "you know of N-Narnia? No one here does!"

"And the apparent fact that you're from there, once," I added, stepping out further into the light. "Call me a casual friend of both Aslan and the current king, and Fenrir knew Aslan as a friend nearly a thousand years ago. He's been around a while." I paused speaking then, turning cautious myself once more; tied up as he was, it wasn't likely he was a voluntary helper of the hunters, but still. "I need to know though: what is a Narnian doing so far from there, in the Orient? Are you a willing aid to the hunters?"

The fox deflated, my suspicion taking what shock was still there away and replacing it with resignation again; more than that, defeat. "No," he said quietly, bitterly, "not at all. Safe to t-tell you, if you befriend dragons I think. It's been…well, I don't know how m-many years; I was kidnapped by Cal-Calormen traders and sold to the hunters as a…curio, is that the right word? But they brought me here as a slave, to make their weapons for them, stuck in this godforsaken _hole_. I have not even seen the sun in a d-decade, left in here. I can't even escape this blasted harness to bathe correctly; all they let me do is make their serum for them."

"So you don't willingly stay here," I said, relaxing. Then I winced at how redundant that statement was. "Right, literally what you just said. Add it to the list then, they're keeping slaves too."

"Slave, prisoner, whatever word suits you," the fox replied, his words starting to flow smoother as he practiced them again, and losing the accent. Once more too as his voice cleared, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu. "I only know what goes on outside of here because they like to talk in front of an 'animal in a cage' who won't tell anyone else, about the dragons they hunt or the wolf who leads an entire city somewhere nearby that they're making mad."

Suddenly he perked up, looking at us with what could only be called a cautious hope. "Wait…how did _you_ find this place? Only the hunters ever knew its location."

"Somebody on a search party from that city, the queen's head soldier and his men," I told him. "They're plagued by feral dragons and we're looking for a dragon that the hunters kidnapped from us, and apparently we got lucky at least on one aspect but I assume not the other, otherwise there'd have been more guards."

The fox shrugged. "True; sorry to say there are no dragons here. But…you are the first people not of the hunters' ilk that I have seen since I was stuck here, so perhaps you can fix the problem I've regrettably helped them cause." He slowly turned and gestured around him. "I was not the only thing they've taken from Narnia; the hunters know of Wildwood, a plant that grows there. It has a poison in its flowers that causes animals, sometimes even people, to turn violent and primal if they eat it or are poisoned with it. All of this was built to concentrate the flower extract, make it stronger and turn it into a serum they can put into darts or other weapons." He sighed, deflating even further. "They wanted to turn the world against dragons and creatures like me, and I…I've been the one they used to make the tool to do so."

"Considering the circumstances of your being here I don't think you can really blame yourself," Fenrir said softly, pinning his ears down to try and look friendlier. "I for one won't."

The fox looked at him blankly, before perking up slightly and speedwalking over to where the shelves full of darts lay. Picking one up carefully, he turned back and held it out to me, not realizing of course that I'd already pilfered one. "You can take this," he said. "Maybe you can discover something to reverse the reaction, and tell others what the hunters are doing. I…" he looked down at the harness he was tied to, and his ears fell once more. "I can't leave; it takes a key to undo this harness and they don't leave it here for obvious reasons. But you've given me the first chance I've had to send something out to turn this around."

"Or we can do one better," I said, letting a sword materialize in my hand. "It's a risk that the hunters may retaliate against the dragon they kidnapped to hold against us, but I can't leave someone else prisoner for that; I know at least they won't kill him, but they might you. We'll take you with us."

The reynard watched with widening eyes again, taking a wary step back as he fell into his previous caution concerning us. "You…you're a magician?" he asked warily. "What are you planning?"

I laughed and shook my head. "Magician? Maybe in the sense of parlor tricks every now and again, but otherwise no. No, I'm gifted, a guardian, much like Fenrir here is gifted to understand various tongues, like Aslan is for whatever his abilities are, and so on. Would you rather a chance to actually be one to turn this on your captors?"

The fox snorted bitterly, and gestured at the harness and then the rope above him. "If you could actually cut through this, maybe," he quipped in empty words. "Stitched through with some sort of dragon scale that nothing in this prison can cut through, not even the weapons they've accidentally left behind before. Believe me, I've tried more times than I could ever count."

"Do me a favor and just trust me on this then," I urged. "Close your eyes, and stand as still as you can."

Without any other options at his disposal, the tod sighed and shrugged, closing his eyes and holding his arms out in a mockingly expectant gesture. "It's not like my situation gets any worse if you fail, so why not?" he huffed.

Half a second later, and he was stumbling forward out of the shreds that remained of the contraption with his arms flailing wildly in shock. I dematerialized the sword and caught him before he could face-plant at my feet, and he sucked in a couple hyperventilating breaths before turning around to stare in disbelief at the perfectly cleaved edges of his former entrapment. Slowly, he stood up (though still bracing a hand against my arm), reaching down to feel his chest and underarms, the open sensation of nothing there, and let out a choking noise.

"W-well, hallelujah," he wheezed, continuing to stare almost absently at the ruined harness, before turning slowly to face back up to me. "What…?"

"Like I said, there are those of us with gifts out there," I explained softly, smiling as I held out a hand to ensure he didn't collapse again. "A woman whom Fenrir calls family is rather adept at manipulating minerals and metals; our weapons can cut through just about anything. You're welcome."

The tod nodded vacantly. "And just when I thought I was the strangest thing I could encounter," he muttered, shaking his head. "A talking fox imprisoned in a hole in a hill making delirium poisons to help callous murderers overturn a city run by wolves, and yet you've overshadowed that." Suddenly shaking the shock off, he straightened up, and stuck out a paw in formal greeting, which I took. "I give my sincerest thanks. Perhaps we should have a proper introduction if we're going to be leaving together then, since I don't even know your name yet. Mine is…" He paused, looking down as if searching for a lost bracelet on the floor. "Oh dear. It's been so long since anyone's called me anything other than 'fox,' hasn't it? My own name has spaced me."

A moment of tapping his other paw against his chin followed, before his expression brightened again. "Ah! That's right: my name is John."

"Well, pleased to make your acquaintance John," I replied, shaking his paw firmly. "Mine is Hawken. You'll meet some of our other friends shortly enough and then perhaps we can get you some decent clothes and then back where you belong. I would wager Narnia's changed a fair bit since you were last there though."

"If you can manage to be friends with the current king _and_ Aslan at the same time now, I'd say so as well," John agreed, clapping his paws together and looking around, before dashing over to a wall. "Oh, before we leave, I'd say ensuring they won't be able to continue their abhorrent project will be my last parting gift."

He ran round the room, hiding or pocketing what I had to assume were necessary tools for making the Wildwood serum that I now had as evidence in my grasp (or breaking pieces of equipment if they were too big to hide or steal away in such a manner that the damage wouldn't be noticeable until someone attempted use them and pulled the items apart). As he did though, a thought similar to the one I'd had when I first laid eyes on him wormed its way back into my head. It was a long shot, but I had to ask.

"Out of curiosity John, do you remember your last name, if you had one?"

The fox slowed as he pondered my question for a moment, before grinning and resuming his self-given task of cutting apart what looked like a plastic tube with the sharp end of a pin. "Actually yes; if it wasn't just 'fox' they'd refer to me by that name more often," he replied, his eyes remaining on his task. "Jonathan Wilde's my full name. Why do you ask?"

I couldn't help but lean against the wall as I laughed hard enough to start tearing up. There it was: that was why not just his appearance, but even his mannerisms seemed familiar. Naturally he slowed to stare at me with some concern (from the particular expression he wore, mostly for my own sanity),and looked to Fenrir.

"Is he okay?"

The wolf sighed. "We never really know. But, uh, as soon as he stops laughing I think you're going to get the real shock of your life."

I forced myself to swallow my laughter at that nodding as I did, and after making sure I wasn't going to devolve into giggles again I pushed myself back up and faced the fox.

"Well, heh, small world it is. Uh, John, perchance would you happen to know a one Nicholas Wilde then?"

Shattering glass echoed as John stumbled in his sideways reach, accidentally swiping a set of jars and dart shafts to the ground as he spun to face me fully, a thousand emotions rushing across his muzzle. "Wh-what did you say?" he asked slowly, softly, as if wanting for a repeat was to make my words prior vanish. The expression that finally fixed itself for the time being was what I could only call hope for something he thought too good to believe.

"Nicholas Piberius Wilde; I'll affirm you do know that name then."

Clearly he did. John immediately sat on the ground to avoid falling, eyes watering as he looked across the room unseeingly, nodding slowly. "That's…that's the name of my son," he whispered. Suddenly he refocused in the present, eyes burning into me. "That's my son!" he shouted. "You know him? Is he still alive? Is he here?!"

"More than alive, my friend," Fenrir interjected with a smile, redirecting John's attention on him as he popped up next to me with a reassuring expression. "He's an officer of the law in Narnia, works for King Caspian by what he and his partner said. They're actually helping out another group of our friends and family currently, trying to find the same missing dragon we're after closer to our home."

"An officer," John reiterated, as if it was a claim too good to be true. I saw tears fall, and felt my heart move for him. "My son…is an officer. T-that means the war's over, and Nick…Nick's been successful! And he's working with…you're friends with him now?"

At our nods, he scrambled to his feet and with a laugh that sounded like it had been chained up for decades (it probably had) grabbed both of us in a hug, surprisingly strong for the little mammal who'd been cooped up in a lab for years, and squeezed us as he sobbed and laughed in tandem.

"I…you have no idea just how much you've just done for me by telling me," he finally said after a few minutes of Fenrir and I standing still as stone, awkward and sharing glances before he let us go. "I haven't seen my family in a very, very long time, and, well, I hadn't a hope that I ever would again. But then you walk in, cut me free, and tell me you _know_ my son!" Stepping back a touch, he looked between the two of us with a beaming expression that was so much the opposite of the broken expression we'd walked in to see him with that it was hard to claim he was even the same fox.

Then he suddenly began pushing us toward the hall, in a great hurry now to leave. "There's nothing left for any of us here," he said urgently. "You have an answer for one of your problems, the savage dragons that I know we can find a fix for, and I'm sorry to say your missing reptile was never brought here. Any dragon really, so you must move on and find where they did take them. And I have nothing to gather that I want to take with me, and the hunters will not be able to fix their equipment for months let alone figure out how to use it themselves, so let's leave this godforsaken hole and let them suffer their own payback."

"Well, I don't think I have an argument for that," I said lightly, gladly turning and walking down the corridor again with Fenrir beside me and John coming up to brush past and ahead of us as well in his hurry to leave. "We've just got to go collect Tan Qiao at the entrance and then we can head straight back to…"

I trailed off and slowed to a halt as something buzzed in one of my pockets inside the coat I always wore. Turning and reaching in, a sudden chill running down my back, I pulled out the long distance radio Zipeau had given to each of the search parties. The other two noticed my stopping of course, and slowed as well to look back at me in confusion, John more so than Fenrir. The radio was vibrating and flashing a red light, indicating someone attempting to contact me, so I pressed the speaker button immediately.

"Hello?"

"Hawken, thank God! We've got a big problem developing over here," Hiccup's voice rang through, breathless and slightly panicked. "We found Viggo's main base over here and…well, Tsefan wasn't there either, but wild dragons have been losing their minds and going feral all over the place up here, and the hunters are behind it. They're darting it with, uh…"

"Wildwood," I supplied, expression darkening and a churning sensation rising in my stomach. I reached into another pocket, feeling the pair of darts hiding within.

"Yes, that's it," Hiccup said, before pausing. "Wait, you know about this too?"

"There's been a similar problem along the coast of China, and we just found the source they were using to make the serum," I growled. "They had a Narnian captive here as a slave –we'll be bringing him with us by the way, big surprise for everyone- and they've been making the stuff for two and a half decades at least and causing a war over here with it."

"Two and a half…oh, God. Viggo said he'd had plans, but I didn't think it was going on that long. This is global, isn't it?"

"Yeah, have to assume so. If you're having issues too, it's a worldwide endeavor already with the stuff."

"Right. Anyway, we have another big problem," Hiccup refocused frantically. "Viggo knew we were there, expected us, and…Hawken, he's got weapons that use Aurianna's gems. He had a dart gun that could bypass our barriers and…Nick's been shot with a potentially fatal dose of the serum."

My blood ran cold, and I nearly dropped the radio. Viggo had weapons that could bypass the best defense the rest of my friends had, which meant I was the only one he couldn't get a certain shot at, and he was making Wildwood doses strong enough not only to cause madness, but possibly death, and we didn't yet have a cure.

And it was Nick who had been shot. My eyes slowly traveled over to meet John's; he'd heard the whole thing and his excited expression had suddenly turned terrified all over again. His eyes flicked in a panic to the radio and I followed, fear rising as I saw another light blinking: the power was already draining due to the distance of the signal. I had almost no time to talk, and we had to move.

"Do you know how long we have?"

"Couple of days at most if Viggo is to be believed," Hiccup replied, "and unfortunately I think this is one time he's not being deceptive. Nick's already dropped into savage state though, and we had to tie him down. We're headed back to Berk now to get him to a hospital. How soon can you be here to help?"

"I'll be there in a half hour, maybe less," I said, already calculating what needed to be taken care of in that time. "Radio's almost dead so I need to turn it off; just try to keep Nick calm in any way you can and we'll meet you there."

"We'll probably be back just after you then. See you there."

The transmission ended as Hiccup turned off his end of the call, and I did so mine before rushing back to the room behind us.

"What on earth are you doing?!" John cried frantically.

"Grabbing more darts," I growled, "and Tsefan forgive me for this, but I'm fully preventing this from escalating any further while I can." I spun around the corner, running to the shelves and swiping a few more darts to stuff in my pocket before charging up an electrical streamer around my hand and whipping it down across the rest of the little monstrosities. The liquid within each vaporized in an instant and they exploded simultaneously, showering the room in glass and metal shards and leaving the supply of darts destroyed. Wasting no more time I whirled back around again and rushed down the hall, taking John's place of before and ushering the two mammals ahead of me.

We burst out the door, startling Qiao in spectacular fashion as I let the metal and wood cover fall back into place, but he quickly composed himself again. However, he couldn't help a curious glance at John. "The heck did you find in there?" he asked as I began to morph, drawing John's shocked gaze again. "Coming out in quite a hurry. And with a guest."

"A final answer to the mystery of the savage dragons, more confirmation that it's the Coalition spearheading the problem, and this is a Narnian fox that they had imprisoned and were forcing to make their poison," I explained quickly as I crouched down, a fully grown Shadowracer. "Get on now; we need to get back to Láng Chéng and drop you off with the evidence because I also just got a call from our other friends with a message that we need to get back to Berk pronto."

Fenrir and Qiao did not hesitate did not hesitate to climb on (well, the latter maybe with slight reluctance, but he was at least somewhat used to me now and spurred on by my own urgency and my provision of the strap again), but John was slow to move.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes I know, I can turn into a dragon at will and it's very shocking, get used to it," I snapped. "Your son's life is in mortal danger and you need to get away from here now otherwise yours might be too, so get on!"

I don't know what spurred him more, but luckily this time John shook off his reservations and gingerly climbed on, grabbing hold of one of my vertebral spines tightly. I erected a barrier over them to protect them from the wind now that I had three relatively unsecured passengers and then yelled, "Brace yourselves!" before launching off the ground.

Everyone was congregating in Xi'nai's palace courtyard when we returned, likely to arrange further plans for rebuilding, and my friends alongside Peter, the head wolf, and Ashira jumped up immediately as I dove down to land.

"Find anything?" Teshra asked, before she and everyone else caught sight of John sliding shakily off my back with the other two before I demorphed. "Never mind, answered that question."

"A lot more too, actually," I said, "Teshra, Ember, everyone else, believe it or not meet John Wilde, Nick's father." I paused for just a moment to let that sink in (and sink in it did; had I not continued speaking I was sure jaws would have hit the ground) before turning to Peter, Xi'nai, and Ashira, pulling out one of the darts for each of them as evidence. "The Coalition has been drugging the dragons with a serum from a Narnian plant called Wildwood, so if you can find something that can counter this, do so immediately. Unfortunately we can't stick around to help, as I was just told that the hunters have attacked another of our group elsewhere with the same drug, so we have to leave for now and assist them."

"You're going right now?" Peter asked warily, glancing at the wolf and woman near him. "But you only just got this answer, and you promised to help them rebuild what was lost last night! What if your dragon is here somewhere still? Or you can find the cure before we do?"

"You can work with Xi'nai and Ashira to find answers," I said hurriedly. "They're not your enemies after all, just other victims played off each other by the same people. If we find a cure then I assure you I will personally come back here to give it to you, and I will bring helping hands to fix things or perhaps a payment for what was done if you've finished by the time I get back. But my friend is facing death right now and the head of the Coalition knows we've been meddling, plus John here has told us that no dragon was ever brought to the hideout the hunters had him at, let alone any Night Furies. Our lead for that here is dead, and if Tsefan is anywhere else in the area then as soon as they find out what we did to John's prison and the poison factory there the hunters will move him anyway. I have a crisis that needs my attention now though, and the search will have to follow after."

"Hawken, the trip home is going to take several hours at the least still," Ember reminded with caution. "Do we have that kind of time?"

"Hiccup said Viggo claims the poison will take a couple of days for full lethality to set in, so I hope so," I said. "And we're not traveling back the way we came; Odin said I control the portal to an extent, remember?" Not waiting for an answer, I turned away and focused on the air in an open portion of the courtyard ahead of us, lifting my hand and focusing. "We're taking the shortcut." The air rippled and split, a dappled glow appearing above the ground in front of my outstretched hand.

"Oh," Ember blurted dumbly. "Right."

"Okay, let's move!" I snapped. "Everyone through!"

One by one they obeyed, even John cautiously following the others without hesitating too long, and I gave one last glance around once I was the last of us present, nodding firmly toward Peter and Xi'nai. "I swear I will be back to help, whether with a cure or just to bring the hunters down if that's all I can manage," I promised. Then, I stepped through too. Behind me, the uncertain faces of the Alagaesian man and Asian wolf vanished behind the glow, and then I was standing in my yard with the others, the portal resetting itself behind me in a shift of light so slight only a watchful eye would have caught it.

"Alright, now everyone to Berk!"

"But… we just came through there, didn't we?" John asked in confusion. "What…?"

"Again, just trust me," I replied, offering my hand to him again. He paused a moment, before steeling himself and taking it, and we slipped through again with the others. This time, the forests of Berk erupted into view around us, the shocked expressions of Phil and his flock greeting us among the trees.

"Ow, this is going to give me a headache," the fox next to me grumbled, letting go of my hand and holding it to his forehead. "Please tell me we're done moving like that."

"Don't worry, no more portal jumps," I assured, kneeling down and morphing again. "And a headache is still better than getting stuck in China any longer. Get on."

This time he did not hesitate, climbing up alongside Fenrir as the others saddled up as well, and we took off toward Berk, praying that Nick would also reach the island before the fight for his life had progressed too far to be won.

 _Viggo,_ I thought to myself, _after all this is over, I'm paying you a personal visit._

* * *

 **A/N-This had been a chapter I was planning since writing the first couple in this book, a tie-in of an old Zootopia character that was dropped for the actual film and here serving as a tie for the beginnings of the Coalition's grand scheme. John has certainly been away from home for a very long time...**

 **Anyway, with a final test next week and only work to deal with for a month, I'll have a touch more time to write and such so the prior schedule will return with it. Additionally, make sure to keep a close watch on the Book of Dragons; two new entries, the Pirlopex and Mountainguard, will be showing up soon!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	27. Chapter 26: L'velim

**A/N-Turns out life is still too hectic for me to try and fit in a 3-week update...ugh. But, the next one is here. And as always with these kinds of chapters, there's a challenge: what does the title mean? A warning though: an English back-translation turns out a bit more blunt and fresh than the original word I used...**

* * *

Chapter 26

L'velim

/

 _Halted in your tracks_

 _Paralyzed in word_

 _Bound and gagged by simplest of moves_

 _Though struggles you already had_

 _And war already waged_

 _Ruthless more your enemy did prove_

 _For to the heart he struck_

 _Drove you to square one_

 _Everything you'd managed lay for naught_

 _And time draws shorter still_

 _New lives are on the line_

 _Now silenced by the poison they fought_

 _-0-_

We reached the village in bare minutes to find a chaotic hustle driven by factors as yet unknown to us. The scurry ground to a dead halt though the moment everyone spotted us flying in, but the silence lasted only for a few seconds before a wave of Vikings swarmed in our direction. Everyone was shouting at the same time with questions, worries, and information that I definitely did not want to hear at that moment.

"Hawken, yer back!"

"It's terrible news!"

"Did ye find anything?"

"Can we declare war on Viggo?"

"I thought the fox was with Hiccup!"

"We have another traitor somewhere!"

"The Chief will want to speak with you!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I roared, kneeling to let John and Fenrir climb off before demorphing but keeping my wings spread to try and maintain a little control over the situation through the visual command they gave. "First off, this isn't Nick, second, yes I do need to speak with Stoick, _immediately_ , so if someone would kindly point me in his direction pronto!"

"Hawken! Over here!"

I turned to spot Zipeau threading his way through the crowd instead, one hand waving and a serious frown on his face, though the look was tempered a bit by the ridiculous presence of half a dozen random gadgets hanging off his straps.

"Stoick's up at the Great Hall," the Stenonychosaurus said quickly, before holding up a transceiver. "I got the relay from Hiccup about what's happening and was about to head up there myself to let him know when I saw you fly in. Trouble's worse than just Nick though, and…" he ground to a halt when he finally processed the visual of another bipedal vulpine standing next to Fenrir and I, and his brows screwed together in perplexion. "I, uh…is it just me, or is that who I think it is?"

"If you're picking up on the family resemblance then yeah; this is Nick's father, John Wilde," I explained quickly. "Long story though, and I'll explain later. Right now, we need to go to Stoick, and WOULD YOU PEOPLE BACK UP?!" I shouted to the crowd around us, half of them now just eavesdropping and edging in to hear what was being said (or staring at the new fox and making him uncomfortable). They wisely obliged though, and I sighed as we started moving. "And what else happened? I caught something went wrong from the clamor we dropped into."

Zipeau bit his lip, looking behind us as he accounted for everyone present (our whole group was tagging along mostly out of habit). "Dagur escaped," he finally admitted, "made off in the night about two days ago with a small boat somehow without anyone seeing. One of the new models for the long-distance radios went missing as well, directly from our house of all places too so unfortunately we're drawing the conclusion that someone else helped him. Someone who knew where to look at home, and knew that no one else was there at the time."

I felt like a rock had dropped into my stomach, and I looked at him incredulously. "Wh-A family member?! Please tell me that there's at least a chance you're wrong."

"I never took them anywhere else, so the only ones who would know what they look like or where would be those who stop by the house regularly. I have a suspicion as to whom as well, though I haven't yet said anything to Stoick as if I'm right it's way out of left field."

"So not the same person who let the hunters know how to find Tsefan then?"

He shook his head. "No; we caught them. Subordinate in Grimligh's crew. This is someone else."

Another problem that would have to be dealt with sooner over later then, just what we needed. I ground my teeth together, coming dangerously close to chipping one (not a huge issue for a guy who can just grow out a new one, but it still felt horrible when it happened) as we approached the central plaza below the Hall. I knew first and foremost though Stoick needed to know what was going on in the immediate present, so I nodded to Snotlout and Fenrir, telling them to keep the group together there as Amethyst, Ember, Zipeau and I split off and ran up the steps to the Hall, pushing the doors open. As Zipeau had said Stoick was within, leaning over a table strewn with maps and charts and convening with Gobber, Spitelout, Valka, and the others in the village council. He looked up at our entrance, eyes flying open wide in surprise.

"Hawken? Ember?" he asked with incredulity, stepping away from the maps and walking over to meet us. "What are ye doing back already? I thought it was a longer flight back. Did ye find him? A lead?"

"We didn't fly back. And no, just a slew of more problems instead," I growled, before wincing at the painful deflation the Chief went through hearing that. "Turns out Viggo's big conspiracy is using a Narnian derived poison to fuel human-dragon wars around the _globe_ , turning dragons into what amounts to mindless rabid monsters with it which is why he needed a bargaining chip to keep us away, and Hiccup's on his way here now too with the others as we speak because Viggo himself shot Nick with a dose of the toxin high enough to kill in a couple days." I paused a moment to let that part sink in, and my shoulders fell along with Stoick's still dropping expression. "We have no idea where Tsefan is," I admitted, "only that Viggo's about to escalate this fight to a whole new level and we might have forced his hand on our search mission."

"So we're losing on every front then," Stoick muttered sadly, settling back onto a table bench in a slow, fragile manner in a rare moment of betraying his age. Valka walked over and joined him, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and wrapping the other around his back, and I saw in both their eyes a weariness I had not seen since we'd first found out about Tsefan's kidnapping. "If we fight, we sacrifice Tsefan," he continued softly, "and if we don't, Viggo uses the dragons themselves to set civilization as a whole on fire with war." He shook his head, and glanced at Zipeau. "And I assume you already informed them about Dagur?"

The dinosaur nodded. "And at this point he's too far for us to attempt just sending out a party to bring him back, especially if we will now have to deal with Nicholas being poisoned shortly. We could hold out hope that he meant what he said, that he has turned a new leaf and is out there to help us, but…"

"But that he ran off under our noses without even a decent clue why doesn't exactly embolden trust in him," Ember quipped, crossing her arms firmly. "And it burns me that he had someone close to us helping him."

"Aye," Valka agreed, looking forlornly at the ground. "One of the younglings, I think."

As if the news couldn't get any worse, I felt a shard of ice drive through my chest on that one. One of the younglings? As in…as in one of _Tsefan's siblings_?!

"You…you can't be serious," I blurted, drawing her eyes up. Waving my hand in a wild gesture of frustration, I shook it at her and Stoick in a pleading manner that they would say otherwise.

"That's what…what I was going to venture," Zipeau swallowed, looking at Stoick. "You already came to the same conclusion?"

Stoick nodded, before his head shook in defeat. "I'm afraid so," he admitted. "It's about the only thing that could be possible; they miss their brother, desperate t' do something even when we can't find an answer…"

"And one of them saw Dagur as an opportunity to help," Amethyst finished his sentence coldly, voice trembling. I looked over at her in concern, and then high distress when I saw violet lighting up between her vertebral scales. "Why that…that lying, low-life manipulative little-!"

"Amethyst," I snapped curtly, drawing her eyes up (and luckily seeing some of the violet fade away again). "What's done is done. Better for all our sanity that we try and give the benefit of the doubt at this point. If we really believe we need to then we can alert Thuggory and Heather that he's on the loose, but at this point I don't know what damage he could do that hasn't already been done and I fear he's already in a position where going after him would just seal all our fates in this. Go talk to your children if you need to, see if it was in fact one of them, and if so bring them out to us okay? Better a lesson learned than punishment only for them."

Amethyst stood motionless for several seconds, and I could feel the fury swelling within her, but eventually it deflated, and she calmed down enough to think rationally and gave a submissive nod. "I'll have you two question them if I get nothing," she said, "since you can practically pick out lies visually." Then she looked at Stoick directly again. "Where are they?"

"Should be in the house," the chief replied tiredly. Amethyst nodded, and turned to head out of the hall.

I didn't wait to get back to problems at hand and turned to Zipeau. "Zipeau, do the new radios have tracking systems or gems on them yet?" I asked hopefully.

He shook his head though, destroying one more hope. "If they did I would have just told Stoick so he could send Riders out after him already," he replied wearily. "Unless he uses it and I notice, we can't trace him at all as things currently sit."

"Great. And there goes one more"-

"Hawken, are you on Berk yet?" the headset coms suddenly went off, sending me and Ember airborne. I hit ground and calmed my heart for a moment before switching my end on and responding, looking to Ember and seeing her hair fading from a glow as well.

"Yeah, we're here Hiccup, and thanks for the heart attack. How far out are you?"

"Sorry not sorry. ETA maybe 15 minutes; we hit a slipstream so we came south faster than expected thankfully."

"Finally, at least one bit of good news. How is Nick holding up?"

The fact that Hiccup did not immediately give reply was not a reassurance, and I shared a worried look with Ember.

"He's…well, the Wildwood affected him just like it did the dragons," Hiccup finally said, and I could hear him shift uncomfortably on his saddle. "He demanded we tie him down before he turned, and it's a good thing we did turns out; he's fully feral, and the ropes are the only thing keeping him from snapping at Judy and Nara at the moment. If Viggo wasn't lying and it's enough to kill…Hawken, we're going to have to get him over to a hospital immediately."

My throat went dry at the reminder, and I nodded absently. Around me everyone else was listening in with rapt concern, but I didn't really notice. "U-understood. We'll meet you in the main plaza when you get here."

The com clicked off, and I whirled toward the hall doors. "Stoick, please help me make sure everyone stays back when they get here," I called over my shoulder, thankful that the chief and his whole council got to their feet and followed with assent. "I don't know if he's retaining his gifted strength in this state but if he is, the last thing we need is someone getting the brunt of an attack from him if he gets loose."

Outside a crowd had continued to gather despite my earlier demand around our group. Narnians were unfortunately still a huge curiosity to any of the villagers who hadn't been on that particular trip west, and the fact that John was also related to the at least somewhat familiar Nick meant that he was gathering a lot of eyes and ensuing questions. Sasha, Fenrir, and the raptors were luckily acting as bodyguards for him (Snotlout was, unsurprisingly, distracted and of little help), but it was long past time we let the poor reynard have a little breathing room. After all, his whole life had just been turned upside down, he'd just escaped from a claustrophobic prison, and his first encounter with his son in something around 26 plus years was not going to be a pleasant one.

"Alright, BREAK IT UP!" I roared, flaring wide black wings to garner all attention. "Jonathan is not here for interviews, and the plaza needs to be cleared for Hiccup's arrival, NOW!"

Vikings will be Vikings, and not all wanted to just drop their curiosities. My staff materialized in my grip in response and I slammed the end into the steps, making the ground quake and lightning spazz across the stone. Luckily, everyone got the message at that point and I saw both John and the Descendants breathe sighs of relief as I approached them.

"Nick's going to be here in about fifteen minutes or so," I relayed to them. "Right now, everyone's job is to keep this space clear when they land so I can get him off of whichever dragon he's on and transfer him to the hospital back home."

"Are we permitted to go with?" John asked hopefully, drawing my eyes to him. His were full of a thousand emotions, not the least of which the conflicted anxiety stemming from the thought of seeing his son again particularly in the state we knew he was in.

"Of course," I said softly, "but I will be carrying Nick and Nick alone so that I can get him somewhere that I hope can help him as rapidly as possible. I'll tell Hiccup to bring you behind us, but everyone will end up following anyway one way or another so you don't have to worry about being left here."

John nodded and dropped back in relief, and I turned again to direct the others to spread out. Out of the corner of my eye I noted Barfbelch and Ruffnut approaching, and turned to address them as well. Every hand would probably be useful.

"Word spread fast," Ruff said as she walked up with Deborah in hand. "We're here to help if you need it."

"Perfect, just what I was going to ask, though I think at this point the villagers will keep a fair distance from me and therefore the plaza. But," I paused, raising a finger and pointing it at her, "could ask a question: since you live closer to the docks and I know you and your daughter have a tendency to be up at the strangest hours sometimes, you didn't happen to see anything a couple of nights ago, did you?"

"Nah, nothing in particular. Debbie and I were out for a time, but nothin' out of the ordinary."

Her response was given flippantly enough, and had I not been on edge already I might have missed it. But when she said it, I caught Ruff turning away slightly, eyes shifting downward and the corners of her mouth twitching uncertainly. I paused, turning to regard her more directly for a moment, and then my eyes flicked up to Barfbelch. The Zippleback too, was suddenly doing an impressive job of acting like he was supremely fascinated by a passing bird (which wasn't necessarily unusual, but the extent of his focus was).

::Barfbelch, can you confirm this?:: I asked measuredly, gauging his reaction. His response was nothing, furthering my concerns. Instead, I slowly angled my head back to his rider. "You know, currently everyone seems to suspect one of the young Night Furies as being the one to help Dagur get out," I drawled, eyes hardening, "but perhaps we're looking the wrong way. Is my trust going to fail in the team member who stayed behind for her daughter instead? Did he say something to you, because he knew you'd be here with her?"

" _Deborah_ has nothing to do with this!" Ruffnut suddenly snapped, moving her daughter behind her as she faced me fully, her own protective streak coming out now against my insinuation (and one I hadn't intended). It wasn't really how I wanted to get any answers, but it looked like my own skepticism might have gotten somewhere. "Okay, so she might have run into him that night while he was sneaking down to the docks," she continued, "but he didn't say or do a thing toward her and _I_ was the one who let him pass. I didn't help him escape the jail, but for once in my life I decided to listen before I made that choice and I didn't hear him being insincere!"

"He _convinced_ you to let him go?"

Ruff scoffed and tossed her head slightly, her free hand going to her hip in defiant fashion. "Who in their right mind makes a promise to let me have my way with them if we catch them again, unless they're being honest?" she asked dryly. "And if there's one thing I definitely know, it's what having siblings can do to you; he's driven to prove himself to Heather. You've got a sis too, you know what you'd do for her. So why didn't you people think Dagur might be really doing the same, huh? I might not be the most perceptive of the group, but I know when someone's giving me bullcrap about their family, and he wasn't." Her eyes suddenly hardened again, and I felt something crawl across my skin. "But if you want to doubt me, because I'm _one of the dumb twins_ , fine, take it out on me, but don't you _dare_ use Debbie to get to me!"

It felt almost exactly like the day before, like I'd tripped over something I definitely shouldn't have said and fallen hard on my face across a line I shouldn't have touched. I held up my hands in apology, kneeling slightly so that I was below Ruffnut's height. "I swear, Ruff, I did not mean to imply Debbie had anything to do with this mess," I said earnestly, looking up at her. "I could give excuses why it came out like that if that's how it sounded, because I'm stress to all hells, but I'm not going to because I know that's just going to cause more issues. And no, I'm not distrusting or demeaning you; that was another stupid minute of speaking before thinking that I've had too many of these past couple of days, and…" I paused, attempting to think of the next words I needed to say and failing for a minute. Screwing up royally was becoming a habit apparently.

"We're all frayed nerves and uncertainty right now," I finally breathed, "and what we need is to rely on each other and maybe right now also to give Dagur the benefit of the doubt, see if he holds to what he's been saying for the past year or two. If Stoick finds out you didn't stop him getting to the docks I'll keep him off of your back; I do trust you to do the right thing, especially when it really matters, and if you think Dagur deserves a chance to prove he's changed then I'll back your opinion too. Okay?"

Ruffnut did not respond right away, looking pensive as she kept a hold of her daughter's hand (Debbie, meanwhile, was doing her best to escape her mother's grip and run off to who knows where). Eventually though, she shook her head and gave me a wry smirk. "You know what?" she finally said. "Everyone's pissy, tempers are high, and you're still not as bad as Tuff can be so I'll forgive you this time. But still…"

Without further warning she hauled off and punched me in the shoulder. My coat absorbed most of the impact of course, but the shock of it still made the blow sting a little. I stumbled slightly and grimaced, giving her a nod. "Yeah, alright, I deserved that…and probably one or two more good hits too, _not_ that I'm giving permission right here!" I added quickly, my hands going up when I saw her grin and warm up for another swing. "Let's forget that ever happened and focus back on present problems, shall we? If you still want to help then keep the rest of the villagers out of the plaza here, but other than that"-

"Coming in Hawken!" my com suddenly blared with Hiccup's voice, causing me to whirl toward the northeast. There, approaching like a midnight bullet through the cloudy sky, was a Night Fury trailed by a pair of Nadders, and I could see their riders quite clearly atop them. After a couple of moments I could also make out their anxious expressions, and I quickly sprung into high gear shuffling everyone out of the way.

Toothless flared first, followed by Nara and then Thorn, as they dropped into the plaza. Judy leapt off of Nara's back first, before she spun around to look worriedly at Nick. Hiccup, Astrid, and Holly all followed suit, and Hiccup jerked his head at me, signaling me forward.

"He hasn't moved a muscle in nearly half an hour," Judy said softly, voice drowning in concern as her ears swiveled back and forth with fidgeting energy. I approached slowly, checking the fox over as well as I could from a distance to make sure I didn't do anything else stupid today in taking him off the saddle. I vaguely noted John mirroring my actions from a fair further distance, his eyes also locked on the other fox as well.

"Oh, oh my Lord," he moaned in whisper. "Oh Nicholas my son, what did you get into?"

Indeed, Nick was barely recognizable as the fox we all knew, beyond his overall physical features. He was tied securely to Nara's saddle, his mouth clamped shut similarly with strong ropes, and his fur was mussed up wildly from his prior struggles. His eyes…they were not Nick's eyes in the slightest, furious and slit with a rage that could only stem from mindless madness. My own heart seized at the sight, and it took me a moment to re-center myself so I could focus before reaching forward to untie him and pick him up.

At the same time, Judy finally took notice of the second fox in our midst, not having heard him in her strident focus on Nick, and as she took him in her eyes widened. "You…you look like Nick," she said softly, perplexed.

John noticed her in return and his ears folded back slightly, before he wrung his hands and nodded. "I'm…well, I'm his father," he answered.

"His father?! He told me you were dead!"

"Yes, well, it's a long story," he said bitterly, before looking at me, "and if it weren't for the young man there that thought would likely have remained true enough."

"Yeah, it was a really weird set of circumstances," I added aside as I undid the last knot holding Nick to the saddle and moving to pick him up as securely as I could, "but we can talk about it later in full detail. Right now I'm getting Nick to the hospital, and I need to know exactly how long he's been having symptoms. Also, how long before we predict things may turn irreversible?"

"He was shot maybe two hours ago," Holly answered as I started to morph. "And Viggo said we have three days at best before he's dead, so maybe two, two and a half before we can't bring him back around?" A troubled look crossed her face and she looked down. "But with how he likes deception I wouldn't be surprised if it's less."

"Wonderful," I muttered under my breath. "Alright, you guys catch up when you can, but I'm heading"-

Everything came undone faster than I could process let alone react, and took us all by surprise. As I spread my wings and electricity started coursing along them, Nick suddenly thrashed with raw violence in my arms, emanating a strength that I could never have predicted from him even with the changes he and Judy had undergone upon joining us. My immediate gut reaction as he slipped from my hands was to develop claws to try and hold on better, but that turned out to be the worst move possible at that moment. The ropes slid against the sharpened tips and frayed, and as Nick thrashed again the strain caused them to snap all at once, letting his limbs loose. My last little bit of purchase on him was lost as he kicked out, slamming me in the chest with both hind feet and knocking the wind out of me as I fell backward.

Nick tumbled to the ground and whirled to all fours, viciously shredding the ropes that held his mouth closed and raising his hackles as he looked around. A feral snarl seeped from his jaws. John yelled in panic and fear for his son and scrambled backward, and Judy screamed out Nick's name, both alarming me that his attention might turn on them.

Above it all, I heard one other voice more clearly however: one little girl's excited squeal of "FUZZY DOGGY!" followed immediately by Ruffnut's equally loud and panicked scream of, "DEBORAH! NO!"

Nick's crazed focus turned and locked on the little blonde toddler that broke into the plaza and ran toward him, and he kicked off his paws in a deadly leap after her. I wheezed and lunged in an attempt to grab him, but my shock from the sudden escape had let me forget to heal myself and I was still staggering from Nick's blow to my chest. I missed widely, and the vulpine bullet darted between the dragons, launching into the air with his paws outstretched. Deborah obviously had no notion of his intentions toward her, her eyes only lighting up brighter as she spread her arms like she was expecting nothing more than a big hug. Toothless whipped his tail around in hopes of catching Nick broadside and knocking him away, but he too missed by an inch, a moment too late.

Somehow, the only one Nick didn't manage to avoid was Judy. The rabbit was on the move from the moment Nick had taken off, leaping over Toothless' whistling tailfins and sliding right into the fox's path toward Debbie, acting as a living shield. She raised her arms instinctively and squinted her eyes as she braced herself for the impact, and took the full force of his leap. Nick's teeth closed on her arms, prevented from causing any serious injury only by the fact that Judy was still wearing her Myscale suit, and Judy used the tumbling momentum of them both to roll the two of them away from Debbie as Ruffnut rushed in and scooped up her daughter, ferrying her away from safety.

I shook my head to clear it and willed away the ache in my chest, standing up and running for the pair now wrestling on the cobblestone. At the speed they were tussling however even my eyes could not quite make out who was who, where Nick ended and Judy began. That they both still had on matching navy blue suits didn't help in the slightest. Nick was thrashing and rolling so violently in an attempt to gain purchase on his new target that I feared he'd snap something in the process, and Judy was moving and countering him equally rapidly to avoid getting herself hurt.

"Some-urgh!-somebody tranq him!" the rabbit yelled from the fray.

"There's no clear shot!" I heard Ember yell back. "Damn it, if we hit you he'll kill you!"

It was true too; Nick had no reservations in this state, and if we hit Judy with a dart and she froze, Nick would take the immediate opening and go for her throat, taking her vulnerability in full well before we'd be able to dart and paralyze him too. Worse, I couldn't step in with any of my metaphysical abilities to try and separate them; I'd hypothesized they probably had something beyond fire resistance, some form of manipulative capacity even if I didn't know yet what the others with him did, but none of us knew the extent of that ability and it was entirely possible that even a feral Nick (seeing as he still had his enhanced strength and likely everything else as well) could instinctively throw an energized Lightning Blazer out of the fight just by wanting me away. We needed him and Judy separate, immediately.

The stalemate didn't last long. Judy was exceedingly fast and fully in control of her faculties, but Nick was a fox, one of her ancient natural predators, and he was a lot more flexible than her and, unlike the rabbit, held no current qualms about harming his opponent. Rather, that was all he wanted. He twisted back around in Judy's grip and snapped his jaws open and closed around her exposed left hand, teeth sinking deep.

Judy screamed and loosened her hold, falling back against the ground as Nick jerked his head back, tearing the wounds further before he let go and bunched up to leap at her head. He snarled, tensed, and pushed off…before overshooting his target and collapsing awkwardly to the ground as well, his limbs not catching him and holding him up any longer thanks to the dart in his tail.

I glanced back to see Holly holding up a dart gun, breathing heavily and slackening in relief at seeing she'd made the shot. Then I rushed to Judy, pulling her away from Nick and holding up her arm so that I could see her hand. "Hold still, okay?" I ordered, ignoring how she flinched at my sudden approach (a perfectly normal reaction considering what had just played out) as I placed my hand over hers. It was bad, the puncture wounds going to the bone and torn along the muscle, and already her fur was matted with red. Focusing for a moment, I watched her face bug out as the gashes began to stitch back together, but more importantly I saw that though the adrenaline was already wearing off and the pain was getting to her, it was fading just as quickly to be replaced by relief and surprise.

"R-remind me to be in your vicinity the next time we do something that's going to end up hurting," she chuckled faintly. "I…" her head whipped around toward the prone fox, ears shooting back up, "…wait, if you can heal this, you could help Nick, right?"

"I really wish I could right now but it's not that simple," I replied flatly, shaking my head as I helped her stand up. Then I turned back to the now immobile Nick once more; his eyes were still tracking me, still filled with fire as his mouth held in a frozen snarl. It was nearly impossible to see the snarky reynard through that veil. "Cuts and flesh wounds are easy to heal, since they just need to basically be sown back together," I explained, gesturing roughly in the direction of Judy and her now renewed hand that she was flexing and feeling to confirm it was real. "But the mind…it's something else entirely. Without knowing exactly what's gone wrong, how it went wrong, I could end up permanently disabling or killing him instead while attempting to heal him. It's going in on a chance, and I am _not_ taking that chance, not now."

Enough time had already been wasted so I turned and moved over to Nick, gathering him up again and this time not worrying about him breaking loose from my grip (the only thing we'd ever found that could develop resistance to Speed Stinger venom was another Speed Stinger) and morphed a second time. I glanced at Hiccup and Holly, the two of them being closest to me, and gave a short nod. "They already asked or I can assume, so bring John and Judy with you to the hospital when you come. See you there."

I didn't wait for a response, taking off in a flash of lightning toward the portal. It was only seconds thereafter before I reached the hospital, landing in front of the emergency care doors and rushing in as soon as they opened. Inside, I rapidly garnered the attention of the nurse at the call desk ahead and that of several other personnel in the halls. It wasn't often that I or another Rider had to show up there, what with the quasi-medical abilities I and Freyja (when she was around) had at our disposal, so when we did everyone there understood it meant serious business.

The fox lying limp in my arms gave them pause however.

"Uh, sir, we don't treat animals here," the nurse at the desk said hesitantly, to which I immediately bristled.

"As far as you should be concerned right now he might as well be a human with fur," I snapped. "He's a Narnian, they have anthropomorphic anatomy to an extent, so call in a vet if you must for discrepancies but he needs treatment more like we do. And he needs it now; he's been shot with a potentially lethal dose of some form of neuro-cephalic toxin that's driven him mad and either needs something to help fix it or I need someone who might be able to tell me how it works so that _I_ can fix the problem. Have I made myself _clear?!_ "

I knew as snappy as I was it might cause more problems, but luckily no further questions were asked right then because at that point I couldn't find it in me to care either.

* * *

Judy didn't hesitate for a moment after Hawken took off before marching straight over to Toothless, standing expectantly by his saddle and staring at Hiccup. "So come on, let's go already!" she snapped. "I am _not_ going to sit here while Nick's being taken care of; I need to know how he's doing."

Hiccup nodded acquiescence. "Don't worry, we're going," he replied, climbing onto Toothless' saddle before offering the rabbit a hand. "They've got a lot better medical experts there than we do and Hawken is persistent, so I'm sure Nick will be okay Judy. If anyone can deal with this it's them."

"Yeah, but you heard Hawken. He can't do anything since it's Nick's mind that's affected," Judy bit back worriedly, settling in behind him and looking toward John. "What if the medics there aren't any better? I… _we_ can't lose him, not now that we have answers, now that his father's been found again, and…"

She trailed off, but what was left unspoken somehow echoed louder than what she'd said aloud.

"We'll figure out something Judy, even if it means running halfway around the world again," Holly answered, jumping up into Nara's saddle to follow. "Doesn't take long with my brother anyway. Hey, Nick's dad, you coming?"

"Uh, John will do well enough," the fox still present responded awkwardly, before slowly shuffling forward. "And yes I am coming. I have not seen Nicholas in over 25 years now, and I intend to be there when he returns to his own head."

"Then come on, you can fit on here with us, right Hiccup?" Judy said, patting the saddle in front of her and behind Hiccup as she looked up questioningly at the rider. Hiccup nodded affirmation, but John balked in surprise, staring at Judy like she'd grown another head.

"Y-you were just attacked by a fox, and yet you still immediately invite another to sit next to you? What kind of mammal did my son find?"

"It's not the first time we've had to deal with Wildwood, and I'm not going to hold that against anyone," Judy responded, before her face fell slightly. "It's the one that hurt the worst, admittedly…" Her head snapped back up with a determined look however. "But at any other time I would trust Nick with my life, and after knowing him as long as I have I certainly couldn't push his father away just over this mess."

John smiled warmly in response as he returned to approaching, accepting her paw to help him up before commenting softly, "You care for him, don't you?"

Judy couldn't fully hide the blush as she looked away, strapping herself to the saddle and helping the older tod do the same. "More than just care, I think," she said barely loud enough to be heard."

"Ah. Does he know?"

"I don't…no, not yet. But he…he will, I need to make sure of that."

"Hold on tight!" Hiccup warned over his shoulder. "Astrid, you and Ember let us know when the others in our group get back, and fill my dad in on everything we found out in the meantime. Then meet us at the hospital if we're not back before then."

"We've got a few things to fill you in on too," Ember added. "Dagur's gone, for one."

Hiccup had been leaning over to signal Toothless to take off, but he paused at that one, staring at Ember before letting out a groan. "Oh, that's just beautiful; as if things couldn't get worse," he muttered. "Fine, when we get back apparently we need a meeting. Toothless, no more time to waste; let's go!"

* * *

Hiccup and Holly arrived with the others in tow along with their dragons (whom stayed outside for the time being just so that there wouldn't be any further arguments with the hospital staff) only a few minutes after Nick had been settled into a room on the second floor up. He would be immobile for a few hours yet thanks to the tranq dart, but we were taking no chances for afterward; it was truly painful to look at, but we had strapped him down to the bed and affixed a muzzle on him, and once the Speed Stinger venom wore off a weak sedative was at the ready. Not quite enough to actually put him under (we had no idea how the Wildwood toxin would react to it in small amounts, let alone full strength), but enough to remove any notion of movement from his body.

A portion of the sample of concentrated serum John and I had pilfered from the hideout was also on its way to a chemical analysis lab so we could know exactly what the toxin was composed of, but at the moment the chances of our hearing back any time soon enough were slim.

I saw Judy's heart break at seeing Nick bound to the bed, muzzle and all, and for the first time in years John had the opportunity to touch his son again, laying one paw on Nick's restrained left arm. It was only moments later that I caught tears falling from both.

"Did they say anything yet?" Judy asked softly after a few minutes.

I shook my head. "Nothing positive enough," I admitted. "The chemistry experts are analyzing the Wildwood, but other than possible help for a couple of the symptoms I explained to them they don't expect to have anything to work with for at least a couple of days."

"B-but in a couple of days Nick could already be dead!"

"Judy." I turned and grabbed her gently by the shoulders, kneeling down in front of her to hold her gaze. "Don't do that to yourself, got it?" I insisted. "I already do it too much to myself and I know what it does to people. We won't lose Nick; we'll find an answer and it will be in time to bring him around again, okay? The hospital staff here will keep him as healthy as they can until we do, too."

"We need to go to Narnia now then."

I blinked, trying to process her sudden change in tone. I noticed John's ears perk up at the change as well, and looked up to see a worrying combination of realization and concern in both Hiccup and Holly's eyes. "Uh, why?" I asked, a second before I realized the answer myself. Judy still said it aloud though.

"We found an antidote during the original scare," she explained, eyes growing brighter and more determined once more as she remembered the option she originally had apparently told the rest of the group she'd been with the past couple weeks. "Just like the movie version you showed us; it's hard to source, but I know we've kept a store at Cair Paravel just I case. Finnick was posted as one of the guards for it for the past year too. We can get that and be back here long before Nick passes the point of no return, right?"

I still had to look at Hiccup, knowing there was some sort of caveat I was missing here since his expression hadn't changed.

"Viggo made mention that there wouldn't be any help in Narnia," he said slowly. "He works with the Calormen traders there and they undoubtedly know about the antidote if they're giving him the source of the poison. Fishlegs suggested that he might have gotten to the stores somehow, and if so then that means we don't have an antidote to turn to."

"Unfortunately we still need to take a chance and head there," I said, standing up and turning toward the door with Judy right at my heels. "Even if Viggo got to it somehow it would be hard to destroy every last little drop and that's all we really need at the moment, a drop. If we move now we should be able to get back with plenty of time to spare. Hiccup, Holly, we'll go, and we might take Astrid too. We'll get Ember and Sasha to head over here to help keep an eye on Nick and report to Zipeau as a relay for us, and…"

Just short of the door I trailed off, and turned back to look at where John was still standing next to Nick. He hadn't been home either in a very, very long time.

Judy realized the same when she followed my line of sight, and stepped back toward him with a soft look, one paw out. "If…if you want to go home with us, you can," she said. "Vivian's still around, as spry as can be."

A pained expression covered John's eyes, and a longing for someone he loved just like as I had seen when I had first mentioned Nick to him, but then his gaze returned to rest on his son again, and he shook his head. "I'll slow you down by going along and having you detouring to my old home," he said. "And there will always be time after we've got this fiasco sorted. No, I want to be here when my son wakes up, first and foremost, and then we'll go back together. I owe him as much after having missed out on so much already."

Judy nodded. "It…kind of makes me feel a little better," she admitted, "knowing you'll be here with him at least. Thank you." John gave her a solemn, promising nod in return, and then Judy turned around again with fire building in her eyes. "Okay, wasting no more time! Come on!"

Now the rabbit led the way out of the room and toward where Toothless and Nara were waiting outside. I spared one more anxious glance back at Nick, but in the process I ended up catching John's eyes as well. He gave me a firm nod, saying nothing but conveying everything that was needed, and I returned it.

We'd get past this, one way or another. I'd lost friends before in these kinds of fights, and alongside Judy I was determined to make sure that Nick would not end up being another.

* * *

 **A/N-As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews! And keep an eye out, that second entry will still be coming to the Book of Dragons soon.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	28. Chapter 27: Three Moves Ahead

**A/N-Kind of disappointed, no attempts at guesses for last chapter's title meaning. Answer will be at the bottom of the page.**

* * *

Chapter 27

Three Moves Ahead

/

 _You never play a game of chess_

 _With your eyes only on the present board_

 _For the answers only lie in future stands_

 _Your opponent reads the pieces_

 _And attempts your thoughts as well_

 _So to win one must set up several hands_

 _For if you only work the board_

 _With reaction and current draws_

 _You'll quickly find yourself cornered blind_

 _And such the same is battle made_

 _Reactions keep you down_

 _Look ahead or your enemy shall bear the crown_

 _-0-_

Judy had yet to experience that unique method of high-speed travel that I now so often utilized, so her enthusiastic yells as we rocketed over open ocean managed to at least lift our spirits a little, despite the present circumstances. That was something needed after the short but heated argument we'd had with some of the riders over who was to travel with us (despite what I'd outlined before even heading to the hospital), as well as what was actually to be done about the presently missing Dagur.

In the end I'd made it crystal clear that I was only willing to take a small number of people with me, in particular my sister and the two younger married Haddocks along with their dragons (and of course Judy, who actually knew what we were looking for and where we ought to find it). There would always be other trips in the future if the others wanted to visit, but this was strictly emergency focus. However, in return for not being able to go with us, Ruffnut, Ember, and the others along with most of the Descendants present tried insisting on heading up a search party for the missing Berserker, but both Stoick and I shot the idea down, our reasonings for why being sound but not of popular opinion. At least that ended with the (admittedly somewhat reluctant) backing of Valka, Fishlegs (who had managed to return finally with the others in Hiccup's group), and even Gobber to name a few, so the rest of the gang was set staying on the island to plan our next moves against Dagur or stand as relay service between the village and the hospital, to maintain vigil on Nick's condition.

Eret's team had shown up too, only a few minutes before I took off with my group for Narnia, and they brought yet more disturbing news with them. Of course, they'd stumbled on the same poison the rest of us had, furthering our drive to get moving. Loki had wished to come with me as well, but for some of the same reasons I'd barred the other riders from coming along I had managed to convince him to stay and help watch the Night Fury kids alongside the elder Haddocks and Amethyst, as well as catch up with Fenrir.

He and the others though had at least brought back a small bit of good news: Rome was aware something was going on, and so were the Saharan nomads, and now Ingavar was traveling the Mediterranean spreading the warning of the scourge Viggo was spreading through the dragons. Now we just needed to find a way to reverse the damage, and pray we found it and got back before Nick slipped beyond the brink.

"Hey, Judy," I asked, looking over my shoulder (as much as one could in our state, at least), "how exactly did you guys dig up an antidote for this before?"

"Hmm?" Judy hummed, breaking out of her excitement at the lighting travel and into the present again, "looking" at me. "Oh; there's a species of bee that specializes in feeding on Wildwood flowers," she explained, sobering up. "We discovered that in their making of honey from it they also produced a byproduct that's full of whatever it is they use to neutralize the toxins. It worked wonders on the mammals Bellwether turned savage those few years back, so we decided that to be safe we ought to store a stock of it at the castle. It takes a long time to get a lot of it though, since the species isn't hugely common and one hive doesn't make more than a couple spoonfuls of the solution in a season."

"So does that make the place you store it a common target for criminals then?" Astrid asked. "If Viggo knows about Narnia then he probably came upon the info about the antidote through whoever he's trading with, and you can bet he'd try and send someone to undermine us further by stealing it."

"Or destroying it," Hiccup added darkly. "Look, no doubt he'd want a stock of his own just in case something went wrong and he or one of his men got hit with the stuff, but the rest he wouldn't leave sitting around anywhere."

"Hey, can we try and at least hold a little positivity?" Holly butted in. "Come on, it's a storehouse of incredibly valuable medicine that Judy just said was at the castle, where it's probably guarded by Griffins, talking animals, and formidable warriors. It'd take a lot to get someone in there to get rid of everything before being kicked out."

I smiled at her rant. Astrid and Hiccup were right of course, Viggo would take every chance he could find to slow us down, and if he had allies in Narnia that's exactly what he'd have sent them to do. But on the other hand, Holly had to be given credit as well: it would take a lot to break into Cair Paravel from what I remembered of the last time we were there, and if we kept looking at just the worst-case scenario we'd never survive the mess that was coming our way.

"I'm gonna agree with Holly this time," I decided, "enough of the dark talk for now. And don't give me that look Holly, or I might retract my words."

"Too late, you already said them," she retorted.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Look, if Viggo's tried something I doubt he could find enough allies here to be able to ruin everything Caspian has stored away. I for one am going to hold some faith in the guy and his guards."

The last stint of the trip across the sea was spent relatively silent, though luckily it was also short. Not soon enough though the eastern cliffs of the Narnian sub-continent finally rose up in front of us. I heard Judy gasp again as we rocketed toward the towering rocks, and then just as suddenly found the plateau north of Narnia proper whizzing by below us. Seconds later the broad deciduous forest of the kingdom filled our view and I began slowing down only slightly so as to avoid overshooting. The great river that split the land snaked along beneath us, leading the way past several small towns and toward the heart of the city and castle upon the coast. Compared to the last time I had been here, the landscape had indeed seen a fair number of changes; more houses of an incredible variety of architectural structure filled the region around Cair Paravel as roads wound out into the land beyond the city's edge, but the mix of animals and people at least was mostly the same, as was the castle itself surrounded by a park-like copse of fields and trees by the river's mouth. Considering the castle itself though, there were a few new add-ons that had not been there when I was last either.

"Land by the Precinct on the south side," Judy instructed, "nodding" toward the far end of the castle as I slowed. I took her word and banked down in that direction toward a bare patch of road right in front of what I assumed were the Precinct wing's main doors. Mammals and people alike flinched around us and then cowered behind cover as the light of the electricity we were within flashed and the thunder of our approach boomed across the scene, and as soon as we touched down I de-materialized everyone and demorphed. I did my best for once to ignore the looks of shock and bewilderment we received as I followed the determined rabbit that immediately started off in a march toward the building ahead.

We were put at a pause for a moment, however, as at the same time a uniformed bipedal wolf and tiger burst out of the main doors, modified crossbows in hand. Undoubtedly they had been alerted by our explosive arrival on the scene, as their gazes locked on us with little in the way of friendly intent.

"Police! Stop where you are and show us your… _Hopps?!"_

"Wolfard, Fangmeyer!" Judy greeted hurriedly, shooting them a quick wave as she continued her forward march. "Sorry about the unexpected noise; these are the dragon riders from Berk and they're with me. We need to head inside immediately, so if you wouldn't mind," she waved her paws to the side in an urgent shooing motion.

The two larger mammals lowered their weapons and shared a perplexed look (clearly, Judy was known to be forward at times, but the attitude coming from a rabbit still didn't fail to be bewildering), before shrugging helplessly and stepping aside. "Right," Wolfard blurted. "Uh, just gave us a shock is all."

"More than understood," Judy replied tersely, rushing by without a second glance as the rest of us trailed behind her. I nodded to the other officers and smirked at the still quirked eyebrows they shot my way, and almost had to hold down a laugh at the straight-out confusion when Holly stopped briefly to give them a half-salute, before we pushed through the doors and stepped inside.

Judy made a beeline for the desk that sat almost right in front of us, occupied by a somewhat rotund cheetah who was staring with similar shock as everyone else in our direction. "Clawhauser!" she called firmly. "Is Caspian on the grounds? We need to talk to him right now!"

"Hopps?" the cat questioned, still processing our sudden entrance. "Uh…did-didn't think you'd be back yet. Where's Wilde?" That line of questioning died the moment he registered the look of pain that flashed across Judy's eyes, followed by the regained determination that replaced it. However, he couldn't help but pry. "Oh, God…Judy, what happened?!"

"We found the other end of the smuggling problem, and the man in charge…" Judy started to explain, before trailing off a moment. Then she swallowed and firmed her shoulders. "He shot Nick with what we think might be a lethal dose of Wildwood concentrate."

I watched Clawhauser's ears and tail fall flat as Judy continued. "That's why we need to talk to Caspian immediately," she reiterated. "We need the antidote, and fast."

My first warning about the confirmation of our worries was when Clawhauser didn't immediately respond, his mouth working for a couple seconds but failing to produce any sound. However, before he could actually manage a sentence to reply a shout from down the hall garnered our attention.

"Well, I had heard something that sounded like a prolonged thunderclap a few minutes ago, and was just informed that we had some strange visitors appearing by the police department," Caspian called out, a smile rising up on his face as he approached with Reepicheep balanced on his shoulder. "Looks like it wasn't too wild an assumption that I might have some old friends dropping in then!" He spread his arms in greeting as he stopped in front of us, looking between me, the two Vikings, and our dragons. "Hawken, Hiccup, Astrid! It's been quite some time! What brings you to Narnia presently?" Turning then to regard my sister, he added, 'And who is this young lady that I'm not yet familiar with?"

"My sister Holly," I introduced. "Somewhat more recent addition to the official team, along with her dragon Nara here. Unfortunately what's brought us here right now is not good news."

"Something's happened to Nick, hasn't it?" Reepicheep interjected, leaping off Caspian's shoulder and walking up to Judy, looking her over as he did so and deducing the obvious. "You two are never apart, so it has to be; what incident has gone amiss?"

"We need the Wildwood antidote, immediately," Judy replied. "We found the other end of the smuggling ring, and Nick was shot with a possibly lethal dose by the leader of the organization that's been buying it."

Both Caspian's and Reep's expressions wilted, morphing to match that worn by Clawhauser, and this time everyone caught the reaction.

"Something…something did happen to the storehouse, didn't it?" Judy said quietly, ears falling and voice starting to shake.

Reepicheep took in a slow breath, taking off his feather cap, before he gave her a reluctant nod. "Only a few days ago," he said in regretful tone. "Calormen raiders came in the middle of the night, swept past our notice and went straight for it. They…well, what they didn't steal, they completely destroyed outright." He let out a second sigh and dragged a paw over the top of his head, glancing to the side. "We have nothing left, not even a stain on the floor, and the bees won't be active enough to harvest from for another month, or so the keepers have told us."

"W-who was guarding that night?"

"Your friend Finnick and Officer Wolfowitz," Reepicheep answered gravely. "They knocked Robert out and left him there, but Finnick, he…"

"They kidnapped him," Caspian filled in, his tone darker than I'd heard him use since the battle near Romandil. "The Calormen traders andsmugglers have been pushing their boundaries for years, but they've well overstepped their borders this time. An attack like this has left the rest of our citizens at risk of being poisoned now, since we know they're still smuggling out Wildwood itself on a regular basis despite our best efforts, and now I have to treat it as an act of war. Preparations for a counter assault are already being made."

"Great! We can start off the effort," Holly quipped, pulling out a knife and spinning it between her fingers. "Viggo's already got enough of a supply of that stuff out across the rest of the planet that he could launch a full-scale attack against dragons and turn half of them savage in a day worldwide. If they stole the antidote then we need to steal it back, both for Nick and to prevent global catastrophe, and we need to cut off his supply of the serum so he doesn't make the task any harder." She looked over at Judy. "And sounds like we need to get a Fennec fox back before they decide to turn him insane just for the fun of it."

"We can't be provoking the raid though," Toothless spoke up warningly, and seeing the rising question from Caspian and Reep he quickly explained, "and yes, since the last time we were here Hawken enabled me to speak common tongue. Not the focus. If the Calormenes see dragons or people that can morph busting into wherever and stealing back Wildwood antidotes or releasing prisoners, they will undoubtedly tell Viggo, and he'll take it out on my son, again."

GASP! "They have your son?!" Clawhauser exclaimed in horror behind his desk.

"Yeah, it's what got us involved in this mess in the first place, and led to Nick getting shot," Astrid affirmed. "Viggo Grimborn runs the largest network of black market hunters and traders throughout the three major continents east of Narnia, and because they primarily target dragons we've been enemies for several years. He had Tsefan kidnapped to hold us at bay, and he's already delivered one of the kid's bloody, cut-off scales to us as a warning for the meddling we've done so far."

Caspian nodded, looking us over and thinking the problem through. "Then I guess the answer's obvious," he muttered, gesturing at us. "War is already declared so our first strike would have occurred in the next few days anyway. You help us locate where they're holding Finnick and the stolen antidote, then we will be more than willing to take care of the rest of the problem ourselves. As far as the Calormenes or your Viggo person will know, it will have been entirely our doing throughout." He looked at the mouse on his shoulder and nodded down the hall. "Reep, go grab Wolfard, Fangmeyer, and Sergeant Callaghan; I'll find Tavaloss and meet you in the council room. Judy, you know where to take our friends here to meet us; we'll plan our way in from there."

* * *

It had a great view; that much I could say up front.

Overlooking the cliffs facing the West Atlantic, the council room was large enough to house the biggest members of the Narnian task force with ease, and its far cliff-side wall was almost nothing but windows. As we had not met him on our last trip here, Hiccup, Astrid, and I were quite amused to discover that "Tavaloss" turned out to be none other than the more familiar Chief Bogo's middle name. The buffalo held the same kind of imposing stance as in the film we knew Nick and Judy etc. from, standing next to Caspian and dwarfing him as he stared down at the map spread out on the large wooden table between us. Next to him, the also familiar (and already half-introduced) Elliot Wolfard and Christine Fangmeyer stood, as well as the one human officer Caspian had requested, Alastair Callaghan.

"Traders and hunters base themselves mostly south of their capital city here," Caspian explained to us, pointing to the map where the desert met curving southern mountains. Nestled in the hills along the coast was the Calormen capital, and snaking south of it were a handful of small villages before the continent began to break up into a series of subtropical islands, the southern passage from the east to Narnia. "Their raids have never been predictable, as they rarely use the same pathway twice. Sometimes they take to the eastern outskirts and follow the mountains, other times by sea, and occasionally they've struck out straight through the washes in the desert's center, entering our forests where we've been unguarded. They have storehouses and outposts at the ends of each of these routes near the city, and hidden checkpoints throughout the capital itself, often disguised under the region's more standard trade houses and merchant booths. Finnick could be in any one of these places, and we can't say much more than they left along one of the foothill paths. Chances are if they want to keep him they won't have placed him in the outpost by the mountains though."

"I can perform a sweeping search," I said. "Out of all of us I can cover the most ground in a short time, and without any risk of them seeing me. As soon as I locate Finnick I can direct the rest of you to the location, and Holly, Hiccup, and Astrid can run backup and the dragons surveillance while you guys head in and actually take care of the objective. If really need be, for example if they attempt using Finnick against us by poisoning him or holding him as hostage, I can step in afterward and end the problem as well, but that would remain a last resort as it would almost certainly lead to Viggo hearing about it."

"We can be point; predators excel in stealth," Fangmeyer suggested, pointing between herself and Wolfard. "Callaghan, you and Bogo, and if Caspian is going then he too can follow after for support and to cover our backs. One important question we need an answer to though: how are we getting down there? Walking will take at least a day and a half, time that Nick does not have, and Lightfeather and the other enlisted Griffins are away at the moment on the off chance they'd all even be willing to carry some of us. I know I'm pushing Lightfeather's stated weight limit myself, and Bogo certainly so."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Travel's not a concern," I said. "You're talking with a guy who can turn into the world's largest dragons; I could even carry half the castle down there if we needed to without breaking a sweat, and a flight even that distance under moderate speed might take a half hour."

"Well…gee, why couldn't there be any friendly drakes in this part of the world?"

"Then there's no time to waste," Caspian agreed, ignoring the tiger's quip. "Hawken, do you need a map to take with us so that you can make out where you're going?"

I rubbed my chin in thought, before nodding. "Might as well; it'd be appreciated, though probably not absolutely necessary. Landmarks are obvious from up high."

"You will have one if needed then. Officers present: if you don't already have them on you, gather your weapons and armor. Judy, I'm assuming with your new outfit you've already covered, yes?" At her nod the young king clapped his hands together. "Good. Let's head out immediately. It'll be dark in an hour at most; the night can help cloak our presence, a necessity at the moment. With just the few of us going, we may need every element of surprise we can obtain."

"Caspian," I said firmly, halting him as he started to turn away. He stopped and looked back, eyebrow raised. "Again, don't worry if you want to gather a whole contingent of soldiers," I stressed, shifting my stance and leaning on my then-materializing staff. "As I said before: largest of dragons. I can carry a lot."

He didn't move for a moment, but then smiled and gave me an affirming nod before pointing to Callaghan. "Gather a couple dozen officers," he ordered, "and we'll meet on the road outside. We aim to leave within twenty minutes."

* * *

The sun was indeed already beginning to disappear beyond the horizon when we took off, but it certainly hindered me none. And, in more ways than one it was about to prove a benefit. As a Doomfang, I was by and large the biggest thing in the sky, and so in order to keep from being seen from a long distance away I had to cloak myself from below. The lack of light meant I didn't have to put huge amounts of effort into it though, coloring my belly scales and front a deep blue but not having to actually bend the remaining light waves or perfectly match the sky.

The desert swept by at blinding speed below, lit mostly by the moon starting to rise over the eastern mountains in a faint blue-white glow. My eyes were powerful enough to pick out the sparse vegetation and occasional small animal amongst the dunes and washes (even Narnia did have some animal species still that weren't part of the sapient races, believe it or not). Without any clouds above us, and no strong winds other than that created by our own flight, it was almost surreal in the serene, calm atmosphere.

"Bleeeecccchhhh!"

I groaned, trying to ensure my own stomach didn't turn as I glanced back to see one of the soldiers Callaghan had gathered, a young man by the name of Garrett Silwall, blowing chunks over my side and into the open air. "Watch it!" I warned. "No barfing on the scales!"

"S-sorry," Silwall said guiltily, more embarrassed at his fellow soldiers and officers chuckling at him than my reprimand.

"Wow, didn't know you got airsick Garrett," Wolfard teased. "I feel sorry for anyone unlucky enough to be below us."

"Shut up," Silwall growled, clutching one of my spinal crests tightly and obviously trying not to hurl again. "It's not…urgh…not like we fly a lot."

"Hey, it happens to some people, nothing to really be ashamed of," I interjected, looking back again. "Just make sure it goes completely overboard; none of you will be happy if I self-combust to burn it off after all."

That quip seemed to manage to remind everyone exactly where they were again (aka on the back of a dragon, and one that could change species at a moment's notice to boot), and expressions all turned more serious in a flash as Nara and Toothless drifted closer toward me as well, their riders watching my passengers with a careful eye to ensure all were secure.

"Word of advice: focus on something in the distance. Don't look at his back or the ground," Holly said. "It'll help your mind adjust. Or, put pressure on your wrists as that helps keep the nausea at bay too."

"Right," Silwall mumbled, but nevertheless when I glanced back again a couple of minutes later I saw him taking her advice into practice, if discretely as he could.

"There it is," Caspian spoke up suddenly, pointing ahead from where he sat just behind Judy on my neck. We followed his gesture, and sure enough within the now truly faint light I spotted dots of firelight along the curving mountains to our south: the Calormen capital. It was rather impressively sprawling, abutting directly into the edge of the desert and spreading from there along the coast up into the base of the foothills, covering several miles from one end to the other.

I glanced at the other dragons and nodded, before turning back toward my passengers to announce, "Alright everyone, keep a firm hold. We're dropping low!"

A good two dozen or so tighter grips on my crests answered me, and I tucked my wings slightly to angle down and drop toward the desert floor below. A couple hundred feet above the ground I and the other dragons leveled out again, before sweeping in quickly toward the edge of the city proper. There wasn't much in the way of proper cover to work with here, so I was soon forced to scout from a distance for larger structures to land behind. It was several minutes more before a large, darkened stone mansion at the edge of the sand finally gave me what I needed too.

I nodded to Hiccup and the others and flared my wings, touching down as silently as my current size would allow and crouching down low, angling my right wing to the earth so that everyone on board could climb off safely. They did (or at least all but Silwall; he more or less stumbled off before kneeling to the ground and taking several deep breaths) and I demorphed promptly, materializing the map Caspian had given me and looking it over before storing it away again and looking between the Narnians and my closer friends.

"Nearest outpost and merchants' homes are a quarter mile from here," I said quietly. "I'll start from there and sweep east to west, and then work south if I don't find Finnick nearby. Holly, Hiccup, Astrid: keep your coms on. I'll radio in before I come back to lead you guys in."

"Just make sure there's someone's butt available to kick when we do head in," Holly quipped, hand on her shuriken pouch and a vengeful visage on her face.

"No promises," I sighed, rolling my eyes, "but it's likely." Wasting no more time, I morphed to Shadow and dematerialized into the landscape a moment later. I strengthened my sense of smell as best I could in hopes that I might cross the scent path of a fox on my way, but mostly I was relying on the off chance of running straight through the location where they were keeping Finnick, and whatever they'd made off with of the antidote. If they had shipped him off like they had John 25 years ago though…

 _No, not entertaining that thought_ , I decided firmly. There was no way they'd have him overseas this soon after a raid committed in a city that Caspian himself had said was a day and a half away by foot. Focusing on my surroundings again, seconds later I reached the first outpost and swept through the rooms with ease. My eyes and nose picked up a dozen displeasing scents almost immediately, passing the guards present to find cut Wildwood flowers in crates. I itched immensely to just burn them right then and there, but if I did that the Calormenes would know something was very wrong in an instant. So, instead I resigned myself to slinking past the stacked crates and lacing their corners with a special irritant powder I'd picked up online. Whoever handled them next would itch and burn for days, and the thought made me grin despite the atmosphere.

Room after room revealed nothing more however; the occasional guard or late-awake merchant wandering the grounds among other harmless herbs and spices, cloths and rugs, dishes and vases, but no Fennec fox or vials of Wildwood antidote revealed themselves. It was a disappointing round, but at the same time I couldn't say I was surprised either. It was typically asking way too much, I'd learned over the years, to find what you were searching for on the first try.

Then, the failed storehouse search turned into two, then four, and then several houses and even random sheds, and I began losing count of how many buildings I had trespassed through and infiltrated as I moved further and further west and then south through the city, layer by layer. The night grew deeper, the moon rising and crossing the sky as my friends and family undoubtedly fought to keep each other awake as they patiently waited to hear back from me, each of my failed searches compounding their own silent waiting game. Soon enough it was growing so late that it was early, and it wouldn't be long before the sky would start growing light again. We were rapidly running out of time (and me out of patience); it was likely only another day at best before Nick would start experiencing permanent damage if Viggo made true on his warning threat.

It did not help either that the Calormen capital was built like a labyrinth, and the merchant storehouses and their own homes were not set about in it in any decently recognizable pattern, or well enough represented on the Narnian map. I was left therefore traveling practically street by street as I searched, and I was beginning to despair my chances. As fast as I could move in Shadow form, it wasn't fast enough.

Finally though, as the first hints of deep gray-blue just began to tint the far eastern edge of the sky and as I crossed a plaza in the center of the city, I caught the slightest trace of a scent that I had been growing accustomed to just recently: the distinct aroma of a fox in the vicinity. Before today I had been relieved upon meeting Nick in person that Narnian foxes were not like wild foxes (in that they couldn't be smelled by a human's senses at quite a distance), but now I was becoming thankful of the fact that at the least they certainly still retained a trace of that trait as I twisted my head in the direction of the trail and swept down the path. The lingering aroma was old, at least a couple of days, but it still lingered enough on the dirt that I could track it in my current form.

The scent line led me another mile southward through the streets, to the point I was beginning to push up into the portion of the city sprawled in the mountain foothills, and into an area where the buildings were more sparse but larger, carved into the hillsides and crowning the mounds of earth in almost kingly fashion. I could smell hundreds of different things, living and otherwise, in the air around me though, affirming that this was certainly another merchants' hideaway.

Outside the doors of one particularly elaborate storehouse (and unsurprisingly one with a far greater complement of guards and watchmen set around it than the others I had run across), the scent trail grew suddenly far stronger, and far more recent. My concerns spiked however when I also picked up the telltale chemical bite of Wildwood flowers emanating from the same doors. Wasting no time, I slipped inside and began sweeping through the rooms frantically.

Cut plants and crates of dried violet blooms showed up almost immediately, tainting the air powerfully with their aroma, and deeper within the building I began to stumble on more worrying (and yet somehow at the same time, more promising) signs: cages clearly meant to hold dexterous animals, muzzles and leashes hanging from the walls, and most infuriatingly several objects that were undeniably kept solely for sadistic punishments: whips, spiked collars, and other implements of torture hung next to them.

One door further was closed and locked shut, behind which I could pick up the telltale sounds of living things moving around, among which were also the aromas of several different kinds of mammal, including a fox. I almost decided to break the door down and make a grand entrance myself, but wisely thought better of it a moment later. Astrid and Holly were itching for a good fight anyway so that task could also be left up to them. Instead, as I had been I slithered through the shadows and into the space beyond.

At the sight that greeted me however, I couldn't help but vent a little and slammed my tail into the back of the head of the one man in the room, knocking him into the wall and out cold.

There were ten cages in the room, every single one of them occupied by Narnian mammals: a beaver, a raccoon, two coatis, a pair of pine martens, three mice (my mind immediately jumped to Reepicheep at seeing them, and what his reaction would be when he saw them), and just as I had hoped, one Fennec fox. All of them were cuffed to their enclosures and bound with muzzles to keep them both from biting and talking.

I materialized and demorphed, drawing what attention hadn't already been roused by my taking out the smuggler by seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Then I ran straight to Finnick's confinement first. "Help's here my friend," I said in response to his unsurprisingly wary, incredulous expression. His eyes widened even further when as sword flashed out of thin air into my grip and cut straight through the metal latch on the cage. I pulled open the door and pointed to his bound arms.

"Hold your arms as close to you as you can, and don't move another inch."

More incredulous stares, but he obeyed my command and barely winced when I slashed open his cuffs and released his paws. Immediately he reached up and grabbed at the muzzle on his snout, either unlatching or simply tearing through the straps holding it on and slinging it away with a snarl of disgust.

"No wonder Nick hates 'em; if I'm ever taken like that again I might damn well just kill myself instead," he spat in his shockingly baritone voice, before looking back up at me with a still skeptic eye. "Thanks for the help, but who the hell are you?"

"Hawken Carlton, draconic therianthrope and friend of Caspian, Nick Wilde, and Judy Hopps, among others."

That brought him up short. "You know Nick?"

"As of the past few weeks, yes. He's been helping us and we're now trying to find the Wildwood antidote the Calormenes stole because the guy responsible for their smuggling of the flowers shot him with the poison they make from them."

Finnick took a few moments to simply stare at me, processing the sudden info, before snarling again and letting out a not-so-subtle curse. "He's been _poisoned?!_ " he practically screeched, before his ears went up and he looked warily at the nearby door. When nothing happened, thankfully, his expression went right back to angry panic and he looked up at me again for a hopeful denial of what I'd just said.

"Yeah," I said quietly, watching his ears droop, "and we came here to get help only for Caspian to inform us that the Calormenes stole almost the entire antidote store and kidnapped you. Since I found you, I was hoping we'd find the antidote at the same time, but I haven't yet come across it."

A troubled look came across the fox's face, but I shook my head before he could say anything further. "Look, I can't stay here too long right now; conditions of the rescue, the Calormenes can't know I, or my friends with me, are involved per se. I'm bringing Caspian and some of his officers in shortly to actually break you out, but in the meantime, here." A small Mysteel dagger materialized in my hand, and I held it out to him. "Let the other Narnians out here, and secure the smuggler lying on the floor there. This knife can cut through just about anything, so please be careful."

Finnick took it and looked it over oddly. "And here I thought my life couldn't get any more batshit crazy than when Nick up an' joined the police and dragged me along with him," he muttered. "I'll have everyone out when you get back, but I ain't promising good news beyond that."

I sighed. "Wouldn't be much of a change of pace after the rest of our past few days," I muttered in return, already morphing again. Moments later I was back within the shadows much to Finnick's renewed shock, activating my equally de-materialized radio as I tried and failed to shake off the cold feeling settling over me again. I already knew what Finnick's earlier expression was trying to tell me, but after all of the other recent failures we'd had I was desperately holding hope that maybe he was wrong, and they'd saved something somewhere.

 _One focus at a time_ , I chided myself. _We found Finnick, think about that._ "Radioing Hiccup," I then spoke into the com, "I found Finnick, along with several other trafficked Narnians. Heading back to rendezvous to gather everyone for the rescue now."

"Copy," Hiccup replied. "Any sign of the antidote stock?"

I hesitated, probably a moment too long. "…Not yet. We'll, uh, we'll keep searching when I bring everyone there."

He almost certainly picked up on me hesitant tone, as it took Hiccup several moments as well to reply. "Right, understood," he said softly. "I'll, uh, get everyone ready. See you shortly."

Barely two minutes later I was there, dematerializing only long enough to grab the paws of Judy and Fangmeyer, who were the ones on the end of the handhold line Hiccup had ordered most of everyone into, before I pulled all of us back into the shadows again to cross the city. It was a more unpleasant travel method for the others, but we couldn't risk me flying over the city with them all or traveling as lightning of course. Meanwhile, Hiccup, Holly, and Astrid followed my directions on their (much smaller and more easily missed) dragons, sailing unseen over the city as the rest of us passed ethereally through it.

As soon as we returned to the storehouse I brought back everyone to the physical world (and took a moment to at least enjoy their discomfited expressions at how we'd just traveled; not a method I think anyone would get used to) and demorphed, looking up as the riders leapt off their dragons and joined us on the ground. Then I gestured to the building I had put us behind.

"Guards at the front doors and around the side, handful of smugglers within," I explained. "Finnick and the other Narnians were in a near-central room when I left them."

Caspian nodded, turning and carefully pointing out his soldiers as he gave them orders. "Alright; Tavaloss takes half the force, head around the eastern flank of the building and enter through any doors you find there. Callaghan takes the other half to the west; we'll follow behind you and Reep, Judy, and I, as well as the Riders if they choose, will take the front doors. Avoid kills if you can, but we take back our citizens and the antidote if we can find it by any cost. Calormen has declared war by this, so they are set to pay the price of doing so. For Narnia, for the lives at stake, move out!"

We wasted no time, slipping around the sides of the building as the dragons kept watch above, communicating with us Riders through the radios if needed. Holly and Astrid were watching the side streets just in case anyone passed by and sounded alarms, while Hiccup and I stood at the ready behind Caspian as he followed Callaghan's men. There was a door on our side with two guards present, but they didn't last long as the soldiers knocked them out and poured through the side entrance as we ran past and to the front. The noise had already alerted the two men currently outside at the main entrance, and as we marched around the corner they moved to reach for the weapons on their belts.

"Cease if you wish to remain alive!" Reep warned, brandishing his sword as we all did in turn (or in Astrid and Holly's cases, a razor sharp axe and lots of projectiles). "You are charged by the high Narnian authorities with kidnapping and threat of war; lay your arms down and"-

They ignored him (shocker), instead whipping out something I definitely knew this society shouldn't have had: a pair of very clearly eastern-design pistols, very much the same style as Lady Tatsikara's rifles though almost in miniature. If there was a question they'd been working with the Coalition, it had just been answered in full. Both of them aimed first at Caspian, knowing the face of their neighboring country's king, so as they fired I stepped in the way and took the bullets myself. Lifting an arm, I watched unimpressed as the bullets exploded out of the barrels and slammed into my coat before dropping harmlessly to the ground.

"Attempting to murder a national figurehead and a guardian," I tutted, eyes shifting to black. "And after kidnapping and working with poison dealers. Automatic forfeiture of your right to live I think."

I didn't need to say another word, merely stepping to the side as a pair of shuriken flew by and through their necks, cutting cleanly before coming to rest in the wall behind them. The two guards blinked twice, gurgled, and slumped to the ground, permitting Astrid to step forward and retrieve the weapons. She wiped them off before handing them back to Holly. Then gesturing to the door, she looked at Caspian and asked, "Shall we?"

A trio of yells sounded from the shadows of the neighboring buildings, bringing us all to whirl around and face the three Calormen smugglers that came charging out toward us with blades drawn. They, too, lasted all of fifteen seconds before they lay at our feet, breathing their last. "I think now, we shall," Caspian huffed, wiping off his sword and sheathing it.

The rest of the fight within the storehouse walls was similarly short-lived and relatively quiet, soon leaving us gathered in the central room with the formerly kidnapped Narnian citizens. Judy was the first to act, rushing forward and grabbing Finnick in a fierce hug, much to his chagrin. "Finnick! Thank God you're okay!" she exclaimed, squeezing him hard before holding him at arm's length and beaming at him.

"Yeah yeah, good to see you too," he quipped. "But ya know my feelings about hugs, rabbit. Come on, let go; you've got bigger things to worry about anyway."

"I know, but I have to," Judy answered as she stepped back. "Especially after the past couple days. Do you know where they put the rest of the antidote stock? Is it in another room? Did they take it to a different storehouse? We didn't find anything as we came through."

That troubled expression returned immediately to the grumpy fox's muzzle, and I felt that chill of dread return full strength. "Uh, Judy," he began awkwardly, "there's…there's going to be a problem with that." He saw her ears begin to droop as fear wormed back into her eyes, and wrung his paws together as he looked to the side to avoid that gaze. "They brought the antidote vials here with me, but…" he said softly, trailing off.

Holly, Astrid, and Judy all sucked in a breath at the same time as the realization hit everyone at the same instant. "No," Judy rasped out, wilting in front of all of us. "They…the antidote, it's not here anymore either, is it?"

"We had over 300 vials stored, and they brought almost three quarters of them here when they kidnapped me," Finnick explained hollowly. "They destroyed the rest at the castle, were gonna send what they had taken beyond the ocean originally to your problem guy, but they decided then that it'd be too risky to do that. They tied me up and made me watch as they smashed every vial that was left, one by one, and rubbed it in the dirt. There's nothing left."

"Then that means… that means there's no way to protect the other Narnians from poisoning," Hiccup said softly, "or cure the dragons that have been affected."

"Or Nick," Judy choked out, tears beginning to fall. "There's no antidote…then we're going to lose him. He's going to die or…or the damage is going to become permanent."

"No," Astrid suddenly interjected, fire in her eyes. I could tell it was just her own form of denying defeat however as she fervently shook her head. "We've come this far, there has to be something still. There's almost never just one answer. Let's get everyone here back to the castle, and we can figure out another option."

"There aren't any o-other options, Astrid," Judy despaired, spreading her paws wide. "Hawken said if he tries to do anything it could be just as bad, and we can't take Wildwood out of Nick's system in any way, especially not now that it's already doing its damage! What other option could we possibly have?!"

Her words hung in the air as if they were specters, and most of us had nothing to reply with. Even Astrid lost her fire, falling silent and looking away.

"I don't know," Hiccup spoke up softly again. We looked at him, and his head rose up, eyes growing determined as well. "But, I've never been one to just give up the fight, and from what I hear you never have been either Judy. So let's get back to the castle as Astrid said, and we'll figure out something. Or, so help me, I will personally poison Viggo with his own weapon in return if we fail here."

* * *

 **A/N- Bad news for Nick, and for the dragons worldwide...**

 **For last chapter's title, a rough translation is "to silence, or shut up," fitting for the impact of Viggo's threat. Nick certainly can't speak at the moment, and more or less everyone else has their hands tied until (or unless) they can find a solution to the problem of the destroyed cure.**

 **As always, let me know your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	29. Chapter 28: Close Calls, Closer Cares

**A/N-Well, this chapter came out a bit sooner than I thought! But at least close to on time; fore warning, emotional rollercoaster of events incoming...**

* * *

Chapter 28

Close Calls, Closer Cares

/

 _The most dangerous things are razor edges_

 _The lines between good and bad_

 _All too often we stride upon them_

 _And all too easily to the wrong side we fall_

 _Sometimes we do not have a choice_

 _For others contain us there_

 _The fight to balance and pull to the right_

 _Taking all the strength we could give_

 _Worse still however than a mere cutting edge_

 _Is the edge that affects another_

 _The one placed on our beloved's throat_

 _When we are forced upon that line and fall_

 _Someone else will take the blow_

 _And when they do and we watch them laid low_

 _We cry out for what we failed to circumvent_

 _-0-_

Our flight in return to Cair Paravel passed silent, somber, and gave way for too much time for me to think about our current predicament (even with the added distractions of several new passengers on my back that I needed to ensure stayed seated there and not sliding off). Judy sat almost right behind my head too, so I could not turn back easily to see her and how she was coping either. However, I didn't have much of a need to as it was; I could physically feel her anxiety and desperation practically vibrating out from her, and I'd already seen how far back her ears had stayed pinned, how barely held at bay the tears in her eyes were.

Anyone would have been able to deduce at that moment just how much Nick had come to mean to the poor rabbit, and subsequently how much the fear of losing him was starting to tear her apart. The worst part was that I had felt similar to how she was right then before, knew personally how much that sort of loss hurt, and I had no means to giving any sort of worthy reassurance.

After all, at the moment it was looking like our remaining chances for helping Nick himself were limited to my attempting a shot in the dark at healing him, and that had about as much risk carried in it that I might potentially permanently disable if not kill him as it did actually fixing the problem. It wasn't the first time I'd felt useless despite all I had the power to do, but when it came around that sensation was never any less potent with repetition.

We landed just as the sun was sweeping fully over the landscape and awakening the rest of the locals, and as I knelt down to let everyone off Judy slid down off my neck and landed with a choked sigh. She leaned against my scales instead of hopping up with her usual energy and looked absently over at Finnick as he disembarked. The fennec fox noticed, and slowly started ambling over, looking about as awkward as I expected for the kind of personality he usually carried; solace was not his area of expertise. Tentatively, he reached out when he was within distance of her and placed an uncertain paw on her shoulder.

"I, uh…look, Judy," he started in a stutter, "ya know Nick's a fighter. So, don't give up on him, understood? Ya remind me he still owes me a couple a drinks and he can't lose his mind before he makes good on that."

The roundabout attempt at bolstering her seemed to do its job though, at least a little. A light laugh was drawn out of Judy as she leaned forward and hugged the small fox, smiling sadly. Finnick's eyes bugged out at the contact and he let out a stifled groan, but after a moment he resigned to his fate and returned the embrace in a stilted fashion (though not without locking eyes with me and giving me a clear "not a word" look).

I simply smiled and winked back before demorphing and turning to Caspian and Reepicheep, waiting to see what else they might have to say about the situation.

"Fangmeyer, Wolfard, take these citizens and get them to the infirmary for a checkup so they can start recovering," the young king ordered, pointing lightly toward the castle. "Find out where they live so we can get them back home afterward as well. Tavaloss, Callaghan, start arranging preparations and plans for war; the Calormenes almost certainly won't take our intrusion this morning lightly, and neither will I theirs."

The mentioned individuals nodded firmly and marched off to fulfill their orders, leading off either the rescued mammals or the soldiers and officers who had traveled with us. Finnick also left Judy's hug and started tagging along with the tiger and wolf leading the other rescued individuals; more likely than not he had a scrape or two that needed looking at as well, though he'd never say it aloud amongst company. Then Caspian took proper notice of me staring at him and turned to face me, expectant but already looking like he knew what answer he was about to give.

"You're absolutely certain that there are no other stores of antidote present anywhere in Narnia then," I said sternly, a statement more than a question.

Caspian grimaced and nodded. "I'll not be making the mistake of keeping it all in one place again," he said ruefully, "but unfortunately so. Wildwood only naturally begins flowering in a few weeks yet here, and unlike what I'm guessing the Calormenes or your hunter rivals are doing, we've never wanted to speed things along in any way with those flowers, so we won't have any honey to source the serum from for at least another month and a half."

"So not a single person cultivates it, at all?" Astrid pressed, walking up to us. With her expression she was no happier about this news than Judy or I. "With the population here I would think at least someone's done so."

"We could ask around, but I would not personally rely on that chance," Reepicheep replied with an apologetic shrug. "Maybe a farmer or two somewhere, since the flowers do attract bees by nature, but by the time we reached out to all of those across Narnia it would be far too late for Nick."

We fell silent, and that finality sunk a rock into my throat. "So, then that's that," I said softly around the imagined obstruction, slumping back on my feet and starting to look around at the other riders. "It's either take a risk that's as bad as having nothing or…or letting…Hiccup, Holly, Astrid…Judy, it's time to head back then, maybe try my last resort, and"-

"My parents."

The sudden exclamation from Judy had us all stuttering to a halt, turning to look down at her quizzically. "What?" I asked haltingly, not entirely sure I'd heard her correctly.

"My family," the rabbit reiterated immediately, her eyes suddenly widening as her ears stood up on end again. "They…they've always grown Wildwood in the hothouses so that they'd have petals to keep insects off the other plants. My dad always collected honey from the local beehives too; they might have what we need! My family might have what we need after all!" She bounced upward and twisted toward me in the same motion, yanking on my coat. "Hawken, we need to go, now! I can't believe I didn't think of this before; I can lead us there, it should only be a few minutes' flight; come on!"

"Okay, okay!" I said, holding my hands out in a placative manner. "I guess we have a different heading then. Caspian, Reepicheep, good luck and you'll probably hear from us again a lot sooner than this last interim. If the Hoppses do have the antidote, we'll try and get them to send some down too I think."

"Best you hurry then," Caspian replied, giving us a shooing manner with one hand. "Go, and give Wilde my regards when you bring him back around too."

"Understood."

I morphed again to Night Fury and knelt down, Judy not even waiting for me to finish getting into position before she was leaping up onto my neck and grabbing hold tightly. "Best you have something a little better to hold onto; we're not going slow," I announced, materializing the simple rope harness I had kept stored just in case, and Judy grabbed the handle tight. As soon as the other three riders in our group were also situated on their dragons, I took off with them trailing, and followed Judy's pointing finger toward the foothills to the east.

"I should have thought of this so much sooner," the lapine on my back muttered again halfway through our flight. Her words were nearly drowned by the wind out our breakneck speed, but I caught them anyway and glanced back to see her holding a horribly self-displeased expression. With a sigh, I rolled by eyes and tried to give her as much of a direct look as possible.

"Judy, no one's perfect," I said. "We all thought the store at the castle was going to be it, and then we'd be good and done. That that plan fell through was more than enough distraction for anyone to blank out on other possible options, especially since it seems this might still be only an if rather than a certainty that we'll get anything."

"But we're already running out of time," Judy insisted, gripping the rope tighter as she stared at me with urgency. "If what Viggo said is true then it could be at any moment that Nick passes the point of no return! We're already reaching almost a full day since he was shot, and"-

"Judy!"

She stopped babbling and looked me in the eyes again. I sighed. "Believe me when I say it's not going to do any good to think about the 'what if we're too late' side of things right now; it'll just make you freeze. Don't overanalyze what's going on or you will put yourself into a panic or even God forbid a heart attack, something Nick definitely doesn't need from you right now, okay? Just pray, just focus on the possibility things will work out. We'll find a way through this, alright?"

Even if I wasn't feeling a hundred percent confident myself (something I was never going to tell Judy, of course), at least my tone of voice projected otherwise. Judy took in a shuddering breath and closed her eyes, re-centering herself before letting the air out in a long sigh and nodding. Her eyes opened and she focused straight ahead, determined. "You're right," she admitted. "You're right. Miracles happen all the time, right?"

"Daily, around us," I agreed, before setting my gaze forward again as well. Silently though, I sent up another prayer that we would find what we needed, and that when we got back we wouldn't be missing any deadlines.

* * *

Within twenty minutes we'd crossed the western plain and its forests, reaching the foothills, and Judy nudged me downward. Just on the other side of the first line of hills was a broad valley, covered partly in trees but mostly open and laid out in broad swaths of cultivated farmland and sparse houses. My keen eyes immediately picked out the shapes of at least several dozen rabbits among rows of bushes and vegetables just starting to get into active growth for the summer season, as well as a smattering of other species: pikas, antelope, the occasional wolf or fox even, and a handful of mustelids to name a few.

"Your family anywhere near the size of the version in the movie?" I asked innocently, scanning the fields with the expectation of finding one particularly overflowing with bunnies.

Judy snorted. "No, thank God. I've got a couple dozen siblings, and now several dozen nieces and nephews that live in the same household, but I couldn't imagine us dealing with hundreds." She pointed down toward one edge of the valley, where a little (from above, at least) homestead jutted out from the side of the hills, surrounded by cultivated fields and a couple of makeshift hothouses built from what I could only assume as some sort of natural plastic alternative.

As the four dragons angled downward, I watched the denizens of the valley take notice of the large shadows descending toward them, several rabbits dropping what they were doing to either cautiously hide behind the nearest cover or running to their houses presumably to alert whoever was within of the intrusion. The rest though simply halted their activities to watch us come in and land on an open road near the homestead Judy had pointed out, flinching as our broad wings flared to touch down before our riders (or passengers) slid off and I demorphed and dematerialized the harness.

Judy didn't waste a second in heading for the door (an entrance that was only just large enough for someone like Hiccup to duck through), not even bothering to quell the concerns of the many locals staring at us, but she never reached it. The door swung open when she was halfway across the "lawn," and from it and the side entrances to the home somewhere in the ballpark of three dozen young rabbits came flooding out, beelining for her and surrounding her in a swarm of hugs and questions. Half of them shuffled in our direction as well after they'd hugged the taller lapine.

"Judy! You're back!"

"Where'd you go this time?"

"You brought friends! Can we pet the dragons? Can we?"

"No, can we ride them?!"

"Yeah, I want to ride a dragon!"

"Grandma Bonnie's gonna wanna see you!"

"Hey, where's Uncle Nick? He's always with you."

"Ooohh, did you kiss him yet?"

Were it not for the condition I knew the fox to be in at that moment, I would have found it nigh impossible to hold back the snort of laughter that welled up from those last couple of comments that I managed to catch out of the cacophony. Holly and Astrid were less successful, drawing a venomous stink-eye from Judy as she hurriedly tried to extract herself from the mob and get to the door.

"Guys, guys, I'm very glad to see you all too, but we're not here to play!" she admonished as she pulled a nephew off her waist. "Do you know where your grandma and grandpa are? I need to talk to them right away."

"Aww, can we at least ride the dragons while you talk?" one little female insisted pleadingly, folding her hands and looking up at Judy with huge eyes.

In response, Judy gave a tired sigh and glanced at us with apology. "Alright, everyone, these are my friends Hawken, Holly, Astrid, and Hiccup, and their dragons Toothless, Nara, and Thorn. Guys, meet the Kerfluffle; if you want to oblige them so that they're out of the way, it'd be appreciated, but no actual flying if so, okay?"

A chorus of disappointed "Awwww"s echoed following, but Judy wasn't budging on that one as she crossed her arms and looked at me. "And Hawken," she continued, "if you can manage to come along with me; Jeremy, do you know where Bonnie and Stu are?"

"In the south field, by the cabbages, I think," the young (but older than most of the swarm) buck in tan overalls she'd addressed answered, pointing to emphasize. "When you're done can you come play with us though? You haven't been around in forever."

"I wish I could, but not today," Judy replied sadly. "Nick's in a bit of trouble so we can't stay, but once I get back for another visit then certainly." With a little more effort she finally managed to squeeze past the last of the grabby paws as the Kerfluffle turned its full attention now on my sister and friends (or more pointedly, the poor dragons). I shot Holly a grin, which she returned with a tongue stuck out in earnest, before turning and following Judy and leaving them all to their fluffy fate.

Just as Jeremy had said, when we reached the southern field around the house we managed to locate amidst all the staring rabbits an older pair that had also already noticed us (or, at least Judy; despite me being taller and wearing odder clothes I was apparently easily enough overlooked in favor of their daughter) and were already heading our way as well. Judy raced ahead of me and met them both in an embrace. "Mom! Dad!" she exclaimed, hugging them tight.

"Hey-hey there Jude," Stu answered, stepping back to look Judy over head to toe. "Nice outfit, really snazzy; what brings you out to us so unexpectedly?"

"And with friends," Bonnie amended, glancing up at me as I raised a hand in greeting.

Judy stepped back and gestured toward me. "Well, this is Hawken, and he's one of the friends of the dragon riders Caspian's talked about from off to the east. We're here because, well…we need your help."

"You said _dragon riders_?" Stu piped up again, eyes widening as he glanced around a touch frantically (apparently, he'd missed our descent into the valley). "Wait, does that mean there are dragons nearby? Where are the kids?!"

"Probably running said dragons over at the moment," I interjected, "but that's beyond the point. Believe me when I say all the little ones are perfectly safe around them, but if we don't get your assistance soon someone else will not be."

"Oh, sorry," Stu apologized, though he didn't lose the worried look as he started wringing his paws together. "We, uh, don't exactly get a lot of, uh, dragons around here, so I don't know. Who else is gonna get hurt?"

"Nick was shot with Wildwood concentrate, enough that it might be lethal in a couple of days," Judy explained quickly. "And the antidote stock at Cair Paravel was destroyed by a Calormen raid a few days ago. We came up here because I know we've always grown some Wildwood in the hothouses for their petals, and we really hope you might have some honey sitting around. It's our only shot left."

"Oh sweet heavens, Nick was shot?" Bonnie exclaimed, putting a paw out to Judy's arm. "Judy, I'm so sorry." Suddenly her expression turned stern, and she twisted toward her husband. "No wasting time then; Stu, are the early honey stocks still going?"

"Oh sure, right this way!" the buck affirmed, spinning around and speed-walking toward one of the hothouses at the far end of the field. "Can't have ol' Nick leaving us; guy's pretty swell for a fox, and he's one of our most regular customers for the blueberries when they're in season!"

Reaching the greenhouse, the rabbit tossed the door open, releasing a scent that I was starting to get sickeningly familiar with at this point: floral with a practically chemical bite undertone. Sure enough, inside were several rows of large tree-like bushes covered in the purple-blue flowers, and the whole space hummed with the noise of several hundred bees.

"Got a colony going in here as soon as we heard about the craziness that happened in the capital," Stu explained as he grabbed a set of heavy woven gloves off a nearby shelf, along with a mesh "bunny mask." "Since it takes so long to get anything by foot or cart up from the coast, and I never trusted them with keeping all the antidote stuff down there in one place, I wanted my own stock. Gotta say, after what you said it's one time I hate being right!" He started walking toward the far end of the hothouse, before pausing and looking back at me as I followed him (Judy wisely stayed closer to the door, unprotected as portions of her were). "You, uh, you might want to stay back; we don't have any bee gear you size."

I laughed, and held up my hand as it scaled over. "Not a problem for me anyway," I explained, "they can't sting through scales."

"Oh; so you're that dragon man we heard tell of then, aren't ya?"

"More or less."

Stu stared at me for a second, before shaking his head and refocusing, letting out a disbelieving chuckle as he walked up to the first makeshift hive and pulled out a tray at the bottom. "Alright, here we go," he said, holding it up. In the tray lay a distinct layer of amber honey, but on top of it was floating a thinner, clear layer of far more fluid substance that I'd never seen with honey before. Most oddly though, off of it I could catch a strange scent, like that of citrus disinfectant but more flowery.

The buck walked with the tray over to a bench that held a series of bowls and jars, and carefully tilted the corner of the tray into one of the jars, pouring the clear liquid off into it before returning the tray to its place in the hive and grabbing the container, holding it up for us to see.

"This should be enough," he said, "just needs to be heated a bit to make sure it's safe and I can send ya off with it."

"No need for that then; you've got a guy who can bend fire here," I said, holding out my hand. "And time is of the essence right now; how warm does it need to get?"

"Well, uh, never measured it," Stu said as he carefully handed it over, "but I've always been told it shouldn't quite boil so that the water doesn't leave, and then it should be okay. Then it's just got to be put in a needle so you can inject it in a blood vessel somehow, and it'll take care of the rest."

I nodded and held up the jar, looking at the shallow layer of liquid inside before starting to heat up my hand to pasteurize it. Meanwhile as Stu returned to the front of the hothouse to start taking his gear off, Judy ran up to him and hugged him again.

"You have no idea how much this means," she said softly. "Thank you so much Dad."

"Well, I might," Stu replied with a chuckle as he hugged her back. Bonnie had apparently followed us, and as she stood in the doorway he looked up and shared a knowing look with her that I caught without problem. "Ya figured out why ya like hanging around that fox so much yet?"

Judy's ears suddenly stood straight up and flushed red as she froze, nose twitching. She glanced at me, caught the grin that was growing on my face as I turned back toward focusing on the fluid in the jar, and deflated, burrowing her forehead into her dad's shoulder. "Everyone else knew before I did, didn't they?"

Bonnie laughed softly and walked up to her daughter. "Sometimes it's obvious long before the involved are aware," she said, "though it sounds like you finally figured it out too."

"Only because it was pointed out so that I couldn't miss it anymore."

"Then perhaps your trip away with these new friends of yours did more good than we expected."

I couldn't help but snort in amusement at that. "Oh you know," I drawled, catching their attention, "you get thrown in with a bunch of nuts like us and you're bound to learn some new things about yourself. Now, it's just a matter of getting them to admit it to each other properly after we fix this mess."

"Wait," Stu exclaimed, stepping back from Judy and looking at her in shock, "you mean they haven't even told each other yet? You're usually such a go-getter."

Judy was turning even redder than Nick now. "Nope," she huffed in admittance, "we kind of had Nick get shot before I had the"-

My com suddenly beeped with an urgent call on the long-distance channel, cutting her off. Bonnie and Stu both turned to look at me again with perplexion, but Judy turned abruptly to stare my way with dread rising up in her eyes, ears falling back. I grimaced and materialized the set, turning on the channel before asking cautiously, "Is there news?"

"Have you got the antidote yet?" Zipeau's voice came through in restrained panic. "Nick's entering a hyper-stress reaction; the doctors say something's causing complications and he could hit toxic shock at any moment."

I had played the channel out loud, and suddenly I wished I hadn't when I saw the reactions of the three rabbits. Judy fell to the verge of tears as Bonnie and Stu clasped their paws together fearfully. I swallowed, before replying quickly, "Just did, actually. We'll be at the hospital in a few minutes tops; meet us there if you can."

"Copy."

I shut off and dematerialized the com again before rushing to the hothouse door. "Come on Judy, we're out of time."

"Wait, how are we going to make it back in only a few minutes?" Judy asked frantically as she scrambled out after me after quickly hugging her dumbfounded parents one last time. "It took hours still just to get here even by lightning!"

"Same shortcut I used to beat you guys to Berk despite having been half the planet away," I said, rounding the edge of the field and marching up past the house. Vaguely I was aware of Judy's parents following us, along with the attention of undoubtedly the rest of the family members of the field, but my concerns were elsewhere.

Just as predicted, when I came around the front of the homestead all three dragons were loaded down with little rabbits, Nara and Thorn looking amused while Toothless simply stood there in resigned tolerance. All eyes snapped to us as we approached though, and I carefully placed the jar, lid on securely, into a coat pocket before clapping my hands together.

"Alright, playtime's over, sorry," I announced, echoed by yet another chorus of disappointment from the little fuzzballs all around. "Disappointing, I know, but we have to leave. Hiccup, Holly, etc., Nick's apparently having a really bad reaction to his condition right now, so we can't wait."

"You heard the man," Stu called out behind me, walking up to address his kin, "everybody off, chop chop!"

As the rabbit kits reluctantly clambered off, I turned and spread my hands, opening the air in front of me to form the shortcut portal. Then I nodded to Judy. "I can open the portal back to my house from wherever I need to, so there's no need for flying back to Berk," I explained. "We'll be at the hospital in minutes as promised."

Judy let out a choking, relieved laugh and hugged me while I counted off the others running to pass through the rift, before she also turned to dash through. Before I followed last, I looked to the rabbits present and gave a soft smile. "Your daughter and Nick are among true friends," I said to the adults, "and we'll be sure to take care of them. I am certain we'll all be back sometime soon, with both of them in good health. So until then, Bonnie, Stu, I bid you adieu." With a parting bow, I turned to the portal myself and stepped through, leaving the lagomorphs waving behind me.

As soon as the portal reset itself I knelt down and morphed, permitting Judy to climb on and grab the materializing harness again before we were once more in the air, rocketing northward across the city toward the hospital. We barely slowed as we landed outside the front doors, riders and passengers climbing off and Nara shrinking to a more manageable indoor size (Toothless and Thorn opted to remain outside until further notice to reduce the crowd) as we rushed inside and straight to the reception desk.

"Nick Wilde, has he been moved?" I asked frantically, both hands landing firmly on the counter.

"I'm sorry?" the young brunette woman sitting behind the desk blurted, blinking owlishly.

"Nicholas Wilde, anthropomorphic red fox we brought in about a day ago," I reiterated. "Has he been moved to a different room since he arrived or is he still in the same location?"

"Uhh, let me check," she replied hesitantly, turning to her computer and typing away. A second later she looked back up and shook her head. "No, he's apparently in the same room. A fox, you said? Really?"

"Thank you!" Judy shouted, causing the woman to look over the edge of the desk to find the source of the voice before we all started speed-walking down the hall in the direction of Nick's room, leaving the receptionist staring on in straight confusion.

"So how's the cure supposed to be administrated?" Holly asked as we moved.

"Stu said injection," I replied. "It's already ready, and we should have more than enough at least so that either I can look into synthesizing it or get Loki to make up more in copy. Probably both."

We practically skidded around the last corner, and immediately spotted Ember, Amethyst, Zipeau, and John waiting anxiously outside the door to the room. John jolted upright upon seeing us, running over with a pleadingly hopeful look. "Oh thank goodness!" he exclaimed. "The doctors told everyone to stay out and he started spasming and"-

"Okay, okay, deep breaths, don't hyperventilate," I instructed, holding out a calming hand toward him. "Look, we've got the antidote finally, so I'm going to go in and we'll get everything fixed. Nick will be okay."

"But Hawken," John argued out of his panic, "if he's reacting like this already, we…if he survives we might have still lost him."

It was the same worry that was eating away at me, but I didn't dare voice it. Instead, I held to the hope that the description Zipeau had relayed to me meant something else was going wrong, not directly the effects of the serum alone. I offered a soft, reassuring smile and placed a hand on John's shoulder. "You stand among many of God's miracles right now, John," I said quietly. "I'm sure we can have one more before the day's over. Have faith."

He wanted to say more, but then Judy took his hand and looked at him with a similar reassurance, one born out of being in a similar situation as he, so John slowly nodded and allowed himself to be led back to a seat. After all, if the rabbit that was glued to Nick's side half the time could manage to take a step back, then surely so could he.

"Make sure everyone out here stays calm and out of the room," I quietly told Hiccup, before I turned and pushed open the door into Nick's room.

Several attendants immediately looked up to stop me from coming in. "I'm sorry, but no one's allowed to be in here right now," the nearest nurse said, holding up his hands.

"I can and I will," I snapped back, pulling the antidote jar out of my coat pocket as I looked over toward Nick. He was strapped down and muzzled, and even clearly sedated, but despite all that he was twitching and letting out involuntary yips and growls through the haze he was in, and his body was spasming separate from his addled mind. The sight made me want to punch something, but I swallowed back my emotions and held the jar out.

"He was poisoned with an extract from a plant called Wildwood, and this is an antitoxin sourced by the people who live where it grows," I said tersely. "It needs to be administered via injection, and it needs to happen _now_. Am I clear? And as one of the leaders of the Riders responsible for his safety I will be present to watch in one way or another while it's done because if that doesn't work I have the only other possible resort for keeping him alive."

I was certain my eyes were flashing a myriad of colors in that instant, and it definitely helped cement my ultimatum. Never mind the fact that I had a cure now present, once people figured out who it was they were talking to as well it was a rare thing that they tried to argue with me further. After all, it's just about impossible to keep a shape-shifter locked out.

"Right away sir," the nurse who had spoken a moment before assured, taking the jar and turning to prepare a needle with it, before stopping and looking at me again uncertainly. "Umm…we need to know the proper amount to administer, and if it's been sterilized. I won't inject contaminated anything into a patient."

"I sterilized it myself, and the amount doesn't matter beyond being enough," I said curtly, before rummaging through my pockets again. Not finding what I needed, I sighed and focused carefully, drawing out energy to make a replica of the dart Viggo was using for the serum out of thin air. "He was shot with a full one of these, highly concentrated serum. I would assume an equal doze of anti-toxin is needed to counter the effects, but more won't be harmful; it's a honey extract and almost purely antitoxin enzyme."

The nurse nodded, and started to move again. "Okay; Richards, grab me that syringe there," he ordered. "We're gonna need probably 80 cc's drawn out and ready. Michaelson, get a patch shaved on the patient's arm and locate a vein, and to be safe, cut off the sedatives; if that's what he's reacting to right now we don't want anything more compounding it when this goes in."

The room came to life as I stepped back into a corner to be out of the way, but still watching and at hand as I'd said as the instructions were carried out. I fought down the urge to start nervously tapping on things or fiddle with my hands, focusing myself to remain calm even as my eyes remained locked on the fox lying across the hospital bed. We should have had more time than this; Hiccup had said Viggo claimed 48 hours for effects to start becoming permanent, 72 for possibly death, not just over a single day. The doctors had said there was something complicating the problem, and I feared allergies to the sedative or even the serum itself, but I wasn't sure. Perhaps Viggo had only been extrapolating based on what he knew of the effects on dragons, and a smaller animal would be hit faster, and harder.

Or, he'd simply lied, hoping that even if we had found the antidote he'd ordered destroyed we would move slow enough to lose Nick anyway, which now was a worrying possibility. It would be the exact sort of move that the hunter would make, to ensure our morale crashed completely, and right then and there I feared what the outcome of the next few minutes would be.

Five minutes later and the doctors and nurses present were ready, having drawn out the estimated needed amount of antitoxin into a needle, and the lead practitioner in the room (a Dr. Kardell) held the syringe at the ready above the newly bare patch in the crook of Nick's left arm.

"Have defibrillators and respirators on standby," he ordered. "Watch the monitors. Here we go."

The needle lowered, found the vein, and sank in. A moment later the plunger slowly descended, and I held my breath.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Silence, but for that constant rhythm of the heart monitor. For several long moments it remained the only sound in the room, as we all stood as still as stone, watching, waiting. Nick's twitching and yipping died off, and his breathing seemed to level out as well. Two minutes passed, and then the medics began to relax, stepping back and letting out sighs of relief.

"I guess we just have to wait until he starts to come around to see if he's back to…well, however he was before he was poisoned," Kardell said, looking up at me. "I can't give an estimate for time however, without knowing specifics on this antitoxin. It could be anywhere from a couple hours, to"-

BEEP! BEEPBEEP! BEEPBEEPBEEEPBEEEPBEEPBEEP!

The heart monitor suddenly accelerated, Nick's pulse skyrocketing as he began to twitch and convulse on the bed. Kardell whipped around and stood over Nick, scrutinizing him as closely as he dared, before yelling out, "He's going into shock! Get the muzzle off now, oxygen mask on! Respirators fire up now!"

The room exploded again a whirlwind of motion, and suddenly I felt very small, standing in the corner as my own heartrate accelerated to match Nick's, and I watched something I desperately wished to but could not help with, not without risking the todd's life.

Two nurses unlatched Nick's muzzle and held his jaws closed as they fitted on the mask (brought in from a vet hospital to fit Nick's canine snout) before the rush of mechanized oxygen release sounded. Kardell placed two fingers on Nick's throat as they did so, and then reached up and lifted up one of the fox's eyelids, before yelling, "Saline drip with electrolytes! His system's unbalanced!

"Kardell, please tell me there's something I can do!" I begged, feeling a panic set in and unable to not at least ask.

"Unless you can magically reverse the toxic effects now, then no," Kardell snapped, not caring who he was talking to. "I need that saline drip now!"

The drip was brought in and the doctor inserted the IV, flooding Nick's system with ions to try and reset his spiraling functions as the toxin reacted with the antidote throughout his body. For just a moment, he seemed to start to still, to relax, his breathing evening out again.

Then I saw his chest stop moving altogether, and my throat closed.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPP!

"He's flatlining! Defibrillators charge now; we need to get his heart moving!" Kardell ordered.

"What voltage?" one of the nurses yelled back, looking at the very much not-human patient they had with uncertainty.

The question stalled Kardell for a moment as well, long enough to where I was about to snap and jump in to act as the defibrillator myself, before he snapped his fingers and ordered, "Lowest setting first, just to be safe. Charge!"

"Charging!"

The whine of the defibrillators filled the room and the other attendants holding Nick down stepped back as the nurse brought the pads up, hovering over Nick. "Clear!" he yelled, about to bring them down.

BEEP!

"WAIT!" I screamed, eyes locking on the heart monitor screen as both of my hands stretched out. The outburst brought everyone to a screeching halt, and they turned to follow my gaze as well. For a moment, the flatline noise returned, but then…

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Nick's heartbeat returned abruptly, accelerating again to a panic-inducing level as he spasmed once again, before leveling out, alongside the steadying rise and fall of his chest, on its own. No one dared move for fear it would simply spike again, but then the moment turned into a minute with no change.

"He's…he's stabilizing," the nurse holding the defibrillator paddles said with a cautious sigh of relief, backing away. "Heartbeat's back and steady; power down the defib."

They did so, replacing the pads where they hung before, but for a little while we all were still on edge, expecting the monitor to skyrocket a third time or flatline once more even now. But as a minute, then two, and then five more passed without further incident, the tension released from the room and everyone relaxed.

"He's back," Kardell said softly, looking around before locking eyes with me again and nodding. "Janice, keep the IV running for now, same with the oxygen, until we're certain we're in the clear. Have the muzzle ready for that point since we don't know what state of mind he'll come out of this with. Let's clear out everyone that's not absolutely needed in here too, okay?"

The world suddenly felt distant, and I fell back against the wall, legs weak and threatening to buckle under me. The adrenaline that had been keeping me going for the past nearly two days straight disappeared with the emergency seeming to now be falling behind us, and the sigh that escaped me came with a choke at which point I realized I'd been crying. Kardell noticed, and walked up to me slowly, eyes glancing between me and the door beyond which everyone else was waiting.

"We're…we're touch and go at the moment still, you know," he said cautiously, "but I think we can say he'll at least pull out alive now. So…do you want me to tell them while you take a moment?"

As it was it took a second for me to process what he'd said, before I managed to shake my head. "No," I declined shakily. "No, I…I'll tell them. It'd be better for some of them that way anyway. Plus I've been in here long enough."

"Alright then," he said. "We'll let you all know of progress in his condition, and when we think it's safe to actually allow non-medical personnel into the room." At this he hit me with a stink-eye (which I fully ignored) before giving another short nod and walking to the other side of the room to deal with some of the medical equipment.

I took several deep breaths and couldn't help but look over at Nick again (now lying back and looking, if one ignored the restraints and oxygen mask, as if he were peacefully sleeping) one last time. Then I built up courage and straightened myself, turning and opening the door to step into the hall.

Judy and John were both already on their feet, pacing back and forth as they'd undoubtedly heard at least half of what had transpired beyond the glass, and they both immediately stuttered to a halt and whipped to face me with wide eyes and folded back ears when I emerged. The others present shortly gathered around them as well, waiting to hear the news. After a moment, I granted them a small smile.

"Well, we…we're pretty sure he'll live at least," I said. "But…there's unfortunately no way of knowing what his state of mind will be until he wakes up. It was too close a call, and I don't know what he was reacting to."

"W-when will that be?" Judy asked quietly, a terrible mix of relief and heightened anxiety clashing amidst her words.

"They're not sure," I admitted. "Between the high level of toxin, whatever reaction he was having before we got here, and whatever it was that he just went through with the neutralization along with the sedatives they've been using to keep him from hurting himself, it could be anywhere from a few hours to a couple days or so. All we can do is wait and see."

The rabbit nodded in understanding, ears staying flat against the back of her head however. "So…do we have to leave?" she asked. "Anything we have to do at the village? I…I don't want to be gone when he wakes up."

I shook my head and kneeled down to be more at her eye level. "No, none of us really have to go anywhere right now," I assured. "We can wait here."

A second later the weight of the other side of that statement hit us all, and I sat down fully, letting out a shuddering breath and shaking my head. "Viggo's onto every place we've been, we found no evidence of Tsefan anywhere anyone's gone, and…"

"And unless you're present, now we know that any of us who run into Viggo again, or even any one of his closer associates, is at risk of being shot through our barriers," Hiccup muttered darkly, finishing my thoughts as he leaned against Astrid. "We can't go out again even, not yet, not without anything solid to go on."

"Then I can't believe I'm going to say this," Ember sighed, "but maybe were going to have to rely on the chance that Dagur was telling the truth. He's the only one Viggo won't take out on sight now."

We all sat in silence, taking a moment to process that, before every one of us let out a simultaneous sigh.

"The world's gone completely haywire, hasn't it?" Holly quipped, rubbing Nara's head. I looked up at her, and her expression matched her tone; harsh, but obvious that she was trying not to let her frustrations out in anger or tears. "Nick's outcome a mystery, a slimy manipulator holding us all on a rope, and our last chance at fixing it all resting on a nutcase none of us really trust." With a pained expression she looked toward Amethyst, who had curled up on the floor and was doing her best not to have some sort of outburst as well. It was her son, after all, at the heart of this.

"Then we'll pray," Zipeau suggested. "It's all we can do anyway; pray."

He was right too. I felt trapped, and undoubtedly we all did; our last chance sat in the worst place we could think of, and I felt then like Viggo was truly starting to win this war. I looked upward, closing my eyes, and tried to ignore the tears leaking out again as I prayed for a miracle.

It was going to take one to pull us out of this mess.

* * *

 **A/N-Yes, most likely Nick will live. But as it stands, still no knowing of in what state he'll live. And the emotional fortune wheel isn't going to stop spinning in this chapter I'm afraid; we've got quite a few unbalanced events on the way.**

 **As always, let me know what you think in your reviews! And I continue to recommend, if you haven't yet, look for this penname in DeviantArt, where you can find both the chapters of the stories as well as artwork to go with, or additional works more distantly related to the tales I've written.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	30. Chapter 29: Waiting, Spying

Chapter 29

Waiting, Spying

/

 _In the end the fight's not the worst_

 _But the silence that falls near the finish_

 _That time when no one knows_

 _How things will finally lay bare_

 _Uncertainty kills more than the answer will_

 _For your mind chews on itself_

 _Fantasizing, worrying, creating scenes thousand fold_

 _And madness creeps within_

 _It brings us to do the rashest things_

 _To go where we never should_

 _Simply because we cannot live_

 _Without knowing where the arrows land_

 _-0-_

John still wasn't quite sure how he should feel at the present moment. Elated? Terrified? Crushed? Nostalgic? In the end he was sure it was a constant blend of them all rather than a single setting, never letting him settle on one workable state.

The result had now been a consecutive three nights without any decent sleep (fitful, short naps the best he'd been able to pull off), most of which had been spent either sitting outside the room Nick was in or right next to his son's bed, often with one paw on the younger tod's arm. Twenty-five years had gone by thinking he'd never see his family again, imagining and believing (with fair evidence to support) that he'd spend the rest of his life doing nothing more than help enable the ruining of others' lives from a prison cell in the Far East.

Then, just as suddenly, a miracle on wings had pulled John out of that hole and told him the exact opposite of all he'd been certain of. Of course it was too good to be completely true though, in the end, and so here he was, waiting and wondering whether or not Nick would actually recover from the very same poison John had been for years helping to make, however involuntarily. John wasn't sure whether or not life was simply becoming one huge joke meant to torture him and the new friends he'd made, or like some of them had suggested there was perhaps a higher purpose for this constant struggle. Sure, he'd still held onto a sliver of belief in God despite all the time he'd been trapped, and now even more so ever since he was pulled out despite all odds, but even still, John was left questioning what exactly he was to believe of it all. Out of this, what could they possibly have to learn? That the world was full of evil? That, they all knew already.

A slow, deep breath from nearby brought the fox's attention away from his son lying in the bed in front of him toward the rabbit that sat in another chair just as close to Nick.

 _And there's another factor I could have never prepared for,_ he thought, a bemused smile managing to worm its way past the scowl on his muzzle. Judy had stayed as close to Nick, if not even closer, as he had for the past day and a half that she'd been back, constantly looking at the younger fox with a mix of sadness, anxious pain, and longing. The former two were surprising enough (though perhaps the second a little less so; she had told him recently after he'd prodded at why everyone was so uppity about Nick having the muzzle on as a precaution just why the younger fox hated them so much, and it made his heart hurt just as much after knowing), but the latter had thrown him for a loop when he saw the glint, even with having figured out the secret before Judy had left for Narnia with the others to find the cure.

John was no stranger to lovesickness, and that was exactly what he saw the poor lapine suffering from: the want to be with someone, to tell them what they meant to her, but as yet unable to do so. That a rabbit had fallen for a fox was shocking enough too, even more so when the others affirmed to him that it did in fact go both ways and neither had told each other, but John was still trying to figure out if he should broach the subject any deeper with her or not. Awkward as he knew that topic would start out, he opted for a different conversation: their other new friends.

"Quite the emotional bunch we fell in with here, aren't they?" he chuckled softly, catching Judy's attention. "Think I've seen just about all of them pop in here just today to check on Nick, even the dragons that can fit through the doors."

"Heh, yeah," Judy agreed, clearly glad of something to distract her for the moment. "Unlike Nick they don't seem to see showing your feelings as a weakness. It's…kind of refreshing. Well, okay, so except for Snotlout, but then apparently he's always been like that."

John frowned, stuck momentarily trying to place the name. "He's the one with the spiky black hair and the…uh…Nightmare, right?"

"Yep."

"Hmm. Well, even he showed up, when you were out of the room for a bit."

Judy nodded, unfazed. "Oh, yeah, he has a heart, just doesn't like admitting it," she drawled, looking sidelong at him.

John chuckled as she hoped, and nodded thoughtfully. "I see," he said. "Speaking of them all though, do you…you never happened to ask how they ended up the way they are, did you? Hawken has to be one of the strangest characters I've ever heard of, let alone encountered, with what he's capable of."

Judy shifted in her seat, shrugging. "Well, with what Hiccup told me –since I was with him and not Hawken for the past several weeks- their gifts either kind of just appeared, or they're passed down from one person –or dragon, in Hawken's case- to another. Hawken apparently ends up acting like the catalyst for their team getting theirs too, and…well, Nick and I seem to be a part of that now too."

John's eyes widened, and he shifted to look straight at her. "You two received gifts as well?"

Judy nodded again, holding up her right arm and sliding back the sleeve to reveal the dark entwined marks in her fur. "Mostly it's just enhanced levels of what we could already do, I guess," she explained, looking down at her own arm in curiosity as well. "Hearing, eyesight, smell, strength, so on…but, uh, we kind of accidentally found out we're somewhat fireproof too, which I have to say is a handy thing when you're stuck around dragons so much now." She started chuckling. "Kind of a funny story how we stumbled on that one too, in our search: we angered a long, spiky dragon in a cave and it fired at us, so Nick jumped to cover me, and the fire just sort of evaporated away from us."

John wasn't sure to just take the news as it was, or wait for a punchline. An eyebrow rose in question on his face, but then he considered the others they were working with now and decided it was not the most outlandish possibility that could have occurred. "So," he began slowly, "you've been taken as part of this team then? The two of you, I mean, both integrated."

Judy pursed her lips and didn't answer for a moment, before she gave another flat shrug. "Well…yeah, I guess," she finally said. "At least until our mission here is finished, if Nick's…okay, after this mess. But…" she paused, looking off to the side and then slowly returning her gaze to John with an uncertain, almost guilty sheen in her eyes, "…I have to admit, I'm wondering if I'll be able to adjust to our jobs in Narnia again after all this. Riding dragons and running with the Riders…it feels right too, like there's something special about this group and I feel like I'm supposed to tag along somewhere."

"Oh, I've noticed the 'something special'," John laughed, glancing back at the door to the hospital room as if expecting one of the Riders to pop in right then at being mentioned. "It had to take something special to find me stuck in a hole halfway around the globe."

Judy gave him another absent nod, and suddenly John found that the conversation was at an end. The two of them fell into silence again, gazes both turning back to the unconscious fox on the bed once more. John couldn't help but steal glances between Nick and Judy though, the questions buzzing around his brain pressing him to find out what had brought two so seemingly dissimilar mammals together. Or, if Nick had retained the kind of personality deep down that John remembered in his little kit from two and a half decades past, not so dissimilar in the end.

Finally he couldn't keep it to himself anymore, stifling a sigh and turning to look at Judy again, putting on a soft, curious smile. "So, how did you and my son come to meet?" he asked quietly. "After what you told me of his reaction to those little monsters when he was younger, I can't imagine he was the most outgoing, helpful fox as he got older."

Judy glanced at up at him, and suddenly John found himself feeling guilty as he watched her fight back tears as she thought back to when she'd first met Nick. The rabbit let out a shaky, melancholic laugh and shook her head at the memory, and for a moment John thought she'd say she didn't want to think back right then to those events.

Judy beat him to speaking however. "No, you're definitely right," she agreed with a sniff. "I, uh, actually ran into him as he was hustling some poor defenseless unwitting mammals out of their money and supplies; ended up blackmailing him a couple days later with a record on his taxes in order to get him to help me solve a case, one that ended up dealing with Wildwood of all things actually." She snorted at the irony, looking sideways at John again with a look that now spoke a little more of humor than haunted memory. "Needless to say," she continue, "it was a shaky start and we had a couple of big blow-ups in the process before we finally solved it, and Nick ended up joining me on the police force. We've been partners there now for a good year and a half, and now, well, seems we end up doing almost everything together."

John nodded as she turned to look back down at Nick, and he saw the wavering spark appear in her eyes that he knew all too well. Reaching over, he put a gentle paw onto her shoulder in comfort, bringing to look more directly up at him again.

"I know that look," he explained, smiling warmly. "Your care for him certainly extends far beyond even just close friends. How long have you known?"

Judy winced, and shrugged. "Uh…you don't think it's weird?"

"If I did I would have likely said something far sooner. I've known stranger couples as well. Besides, when a guy and a girl are meant for each other, petty details like the color of your fur or shape of your snout end up not mattering much."

Judy snorted. "I don't think completely different species is a petty detail."

John waved a flippant paw. "Last I recall there are no rules against it, and the natural world has caused stranger pairings; we aren't human, so tightly bound. And, I think if that were an issue, our new friends would not have been encouraging you two either. So, I ask again: how long?"

Judy sighed and folded her paws in her lap. "I've actually known for a couple of weeks," she said quietly, "admitted it only a few days ago to anyone but myself. Though I've probably loved him for months at least." She let out a self-deprecating giggle and shook her head. "I know they say love is blind, but I don't think that's what they meant when they said it."

"It can be a scary thing, so we often unconsciously skip the signs; it's not unusual. It took me a year to realize that Vivian was flirting with me, and I was usually the flirtatious one."

"Oh. Well, now I know where Nick got it from."

That quip managed to draw a more genuine laugh out of the older tod. "So the apple didn't fall too far from the tree after all, did it?" he grinned. "At least he followed one other pattern of mine too: catching the eye of someone phenomenal."

Judy choked on the breath she was taking in, coughing and looking away as her ears flushed bright crimson. Not knowing even where to start rebutting that (or if she even wanted to, really), she was relieved when she was saved from answering by Delta popping her head into the room. "Hey Delta," the rabbit greeted, to which the raptor waved a cordial hello as she trotted over to join them at the side of Nick's bed. Delta obviously noticed Judy's red ears, which made the lapine fold them down for a moment, but to Judy's relief the dinosaur did not comment on them.

"No change yet?" Delta asked, looking at Nick, and then between the other two mammals in half-hope of hearing something new.

Judy only shook her head however, falling back into her chair. "Not yet," she sadly confirmed. "It must really have been a lot of poison if he was hit this badly."

"Hey, he'll come out of it, I'm confident in that much," Delta reassured, placing a hand on her shoulder as John had done earlier. "Anyone who ends up among us is a fighter."

The rabbit gave an absent nod, having heard more or less the same spiel a dozen times already that day alone; problem was, though they all had higher hopes than previously, she could still hear the slight waver of uncertainty in all their voices, and optimistic as she naturally was this was one case where she didn't feel like looking for the best outcome would rightly prepare her for whatever happened.

However it wasn't like her to dwell on dark subjects either, so to steer away from the depressing subject that was Nick's uncertain future, she instead asked, "Any news from Berk? Hiccup and the others get any new leads yet?"

"Nothing so far, I'm afraid," Delta sighed, glancing out the window with a hard frown. "It worries me too, because both Hiccup and Hawken have been running themselves raw over the past two days poring over every note they can find, when they're not visiting here of course. I don't think either they or the Night Furies have gotten a wink of sleep since we all got back to the island, and it's starting to show."

"Has anyone told them they need to take a moment to rest?"

The raptor snorted, and looked down her snout with a critical eye at the rabbit. "Sure you should be the one saying that?" she asked. "If they heard that, they'd call you out immediately what with you not having even left the hospital here in, what, two days now?"

"Hey, I can at least sleep in the chairs here," Judy protested, though her ears heated up at the fact that Delta was right; she'd spent more time worrying over Nick than actually trying to take care of herself, and she knew it.

Delta nodded, though reluctantly. "Point taken, but my point still stands as well," she admonished. "Of course we've tried telling them, but you haven't seen Hawken when he's actually furious yet, and when he's tired it gets worse. Combine that with Hiccup and all the Viking stubborn streaks he brings in and how they tend to relay off each other's moods and, well…we'll probably have to resort to calling Holly in on them both, since she's the only one they don't dare risk blowing up at. Even Stoick and Valka have been avoiding their house with those two boiling up in Hiccup's room."

"I pray they do actually find something then soon," John said quietly. "Not to vindicate their behavior now, but at least so the effort pays off and we can move forward soon. Or, that they do gain the sense to pull back before they get hurt. Believe me when I say being headstrong in a delicate situation is certain to backfire. I know; I was that guy once."

Delta glanced at him curiously, brow cocking in question. When John didn't immediately start explaining, she slowly asked, "So…that wouldn't happen to, uh…have something to do with how you ended up in China, would it?"

The older tod huffed, and leaned back in his chairs with arms crossed, tapping his claws against his shirt as he thought it over and whether or not he wanted to answer. "I haven't bothered visiting those memories in years," he whispered. "I recall…rather clearly, having an argument with Vivian though, then leaving our home to try and make ends meet while looking for ways to push the Telmarines back out of our home." He closed his eyes and sighed, thinking back as his muzzle wrinkled in bitterness. "There was an ambush waiting; they'd figured out where our little rebellion had started meeting, and when we came together that night most of us were captured. The others taken alongside me were all killed, but for whatever reason they saw some sort of use in me, and sold me off to the Calormenes. From there those people traded me out to the Hunter's Coalition. Not that I knew that's what they were called back then, only that I'd been stuck in a crate and shipped off over the ocean, at the time believing I'd never see my family, or even Narnia, again, doomed to a life of slavery or entertainment for some rich human."

John's eyes opened up again slowly, and he reached over to rest a paw on Nick's arm, looking at his son with conflict. "I was jostled about along their trade routes for a few months," he continued, "before someone finally decided to send me out east, along with several crates of Wildwood flowers that served as the start of the problems the people in that region have been having ever since. They kept me alive, stuck in a hole in the ground to make weapons for them, until Hawken managed to stumble upon me by some great happenstance." His lips pursed, and he tilted his head down as his eyes closed again. "I only have two hopes now," he said softly. "That Nick will wake up soon, and be in his right mind when he does, and they you and your friends might yet find a way to reverse the damage that those blasted monsters forced me to help create."

Delta and Judy both looked sympathetically upon the fox, and shared a glance with each other. "Well, then be reassured of at least one promise," Delta replied, putting her claws on his shoulder now. "The antitoxin serum that Judy and the rest brought back from the Hopps farm was given to Loki and, though slow going, he has been managing to recreate it himself. We're stockpiling a cure, ready to be used the next time we come across affected dragons, or in wider application when we finally manage to find Tsefan and get him out of that hell they no doubt have him in. We'll take a more offensive approach the moment that happens."

That thought brought another saddened sigh out of Judy however, and she looked up at the raptor with fallen eyes. "I can't imagine that will be soon though," she reluctantly muttered. "We had three search parties across the globe and got no closer to him than we were at the start. Now we're all back here and on Berk with no more leads. I pray I'm wrong, but I don't see this being solved soon enough to avoid a bigger war with what the hunters are going to cause."

The rabbit watched Delta deflate a little; the raptor felt the same way, it was obvious. But then Delta steeled herself and stood up straight, with resolve. "Have faith," she replied. "We'll persevere. We always have, and we'll get through this too."

* * *

He sputtered as another wave surged over the rim of the little craft, spraying him in the face with cold, salty mist. It may have been summer, but this was still the Arctic realm of the Atlantic ocean, and yet another summer storm was sweeping across the northern waves as it fed off the warmer waters to the south. Just another fantastic headache for him to deal with as he strained to reach his destination.

Dagur had fought hard to avoid Meathead waters as he sailed northeast, knowing that if he was spotted anywhere near the place not only would they throw him right back into a new prison, but if Heather was anywhere nearby (he'd heard the rumors about her and Thuggory as well, so it was a high likelihood), she'd pummel him to a pulp. As much as Dagur honestly wanted to see his sister again, he wanted it to start off on a better footing, and for that he needed to succeed in his current plan.

As luck would have it, a break in the clouds provided a few rays of light to illuminate a small island ahead, and lashed as he was by the storm Dagur saw in it the promise of the prospect of shelter under the tents and temporary cabins that he knew were usually there. He knew the Coalition regularly used this place as a stopover in their travels, and chances were he'd find at least one person who knew where to take him to at least start in the direction of finding Viggo himself.

But, before Dagur actually landed, there was the issue of deciding what he actually would and wouldn't do to regain the hunters' trust again. Killing dragons was off the table, but he might manage to still swallow manipulating or mildly hurting them (if he could, he'd try to find a way to make it up to them afterward; fresh fish would probably help, right?). At that thought Dagur bit back a grimace; just sitting in a prison cell around the Berkians and their friends really messed with a guy's mind, didn't it?

Viggo would want to know about weaknesses among the Riders too though; at least there he could be mostly honest and say he didn't know much more than he had before being imprisoned. The question was, would playing up the idea that he still hungered for vengeance be enough to get Viggo to let him close?

It'd have to do.

Relief was palpable in the air when Dagur finally sailed up to the dock jutting out from the one sheltered bay on the island. He quickly jumped to the planks, rope in hand as he lashed the little boat down as quickly as he could to avoid losing it to the storm. Nevertheless, under the wind and rain the vessel tossed and tugged at its new restraint, but the former Berserker chief wasn't a novice at knots and the Hooligans made quality materials, so he was assured it would go nowhere.

"Halt!" came a shout from behind him, and Dagur froze. Slowly, placatingly, he turned around to find several well-armed hunters approaching him down the docks, suspicion clearly etched in their expressions.

"We were not expectin' anyone te show up here today," the lead man, a burly bare-shaven individual, continued as he brandished an axe at Dagur. "Who are you, and what do you want here?"

"Ah, greetings, good gentlemen!" Dagur exclaimed, falling into an imitation of his old persona as he stepped forward with wide, happy arms. "My name is Dagur, Dagur the Deranged! I'm here to find whoever's in charge currently, ask around about getting some payback against a mutual enemy whom I think you all would like to see suffer, am I right?"

"What enemy?"

"Oh, those cursed dragon riders of Berk; I've been, uh, stewing away in their prison until just recently, when I escaped, and I thought perhaps my old allies the Grimborn brothers might be open to hearing what I have to offer. Wouldn't you agree?"

The men glanced between each other, eyebrows rising, before they shared a curt nod. "Ye might be in luck then," the lead man grinned. "Ryker himself happens to be here for a little while yet; ye can ask _him_ what he thinks o' yer proposal."

"Really?" Dagur exclaimed in faux glee, eyes lighting up. "Ryker himself, already? Wow, I thought I was gonna have to run around the whole Archipelago before I found them. Sooner that we can _crush_ those disgusting Riders then, am I right? Oh, I can see it now: Hiccup and his Night Fury groveling at our feet to spare them. Muahahahaha!"

"Right," the hunter deadpanned, unsure of what to make of the seeming lunatic that had just dropped in on their shores. It didn't take long though for him to decide to let their leader deal with the nutcase and watch for fireworks. "This way then. And keep yer hands out where we can see 'em; we don't want any funny business goin' on, and we're not that familiar with ye ourselves."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, no problem," Dagur agreed, grinning and chuckling as he followed them back down the dock and onto "dry" land (or what passed for it in the rain).

A short path led them up the forested hillside, curving around the top and approaching a series of sturdy canvas tents in a leveled space ahead. To most eyes they would have appeared like nothing more than a short-term camp, but Dagur spotted the tells that this was an established location for the hunters: strong wood and metal rods driven into the ground keeping the tents upon a more solid, permanent foundation, and the wear in the earth of decades of feet treading upon it. Crates of rations and possibly trade goods stored under awnings or wood covers lined the path and sides of the tents, and perhaps the hardest to spot but most telling, a trio of young Singetails hidden in pockets in the denser patches of trees along the sides of the clearing, collared and trained from a very young age to stand waiting for the signal to attack the unwanted. This was a place the hunters were ready to defend, not just some passing setup.

They walked by the first two tents, approaching a smaller and less impressive structure off to the side and bordered by a thick wall of pines. The lead hunter from the impromptu greeting party fell back behind Dagur, followed by the other two, and at Dagur's questioning glance they simply nodded toward the door flap. They knew the man that was inside could handle themselves.

Internally steeling himself, Dagur avoided swallowing nervously and instead put on his trademark grin as he swept the flap open and sauntered inside like he practically owned the place. Shaking himself off like a dog, he looked up to find the short-haired hunter with the pencil mustache that he remembered so vividly staring back at him with a disdainful glare from a wooden chair near a desk.

"Ryker, my old friend!' Dagur practically yelled, spreading his arms as if he half-expected a hug from the other man. "Such a long time no see! Bash in any exotic dragon heads recently?"

"Dagur the Deranged, as I live and breathe," Ryker muttered (in a tone that did not in any way suggest happiness), slowly standing up. Dagur felt a pang of concern as he did so; it wasn't a trusting look either that he was wearing, and it went right along with the tone. "You were wasting away in a Berkian prison cell the last I heard. What the hell are you doing here now?"

"Well, funny story actually," Dagur started slowly, chuckling a bit and forcing himself to restrain his panicking grin. "Convinced one of the Hooligans to help me escape, stupid fools that they are. Was even one of the siblings of that Night Fury I hear you guys made off with, because she thought she was helping her brother; bleeding hearts are so _easy_ to manipulate, it's hilarious, especially when they're young. It was a glorious deception."

"And how'd you manage to do such a thing as that?"

This one was easy to get out too; it was basically the truth, and Ryker wouldn't know the difference from a white lie. "Told her I was changed, that I would find her brother if they let me out, and she fell for it hook, line, and sinker. It's easy to play like you're reformed when you're sitting around doing nothing else in a box after all, and really, it's no fun not being out making a good profit or awesome names for one's self! I need a little excitement already!"

He gave off a shrug of indifference, as if he really did care nothing for deceiving an innocent youngling, and turned to look around the tent. Much like the outside, it wasn't exactly heavily furnished; only the necessities were present. A table made into a desk, and a couple chairs, a map of the Archipelago and trade routes therein, as well as a well-hidden second exit just in case. The last thing made Dagur chuckle a little; even here, a stop few outsiders actually even knew about, the hunters still made precautions against unwanted visitors on the chance they lost ground.

"I'm sure you're wondering how I ended up here of all places after getting away," Dagur spoke up again after a moment, glancing sidelong at Ryker. The man nodded, and he grinned. "Well, I worked with you guys way back when of course, made allies, got some contacts here and there, had fun skewering those pesky fire-breathing reptiles that fly around all over the place so freely now, and in the process made sure I knew where I could find some allies later on. Now, after sitting in one of Berk's jail cells for a few years I've worked up quite the vengeful streak, as I'm certain you can understand, so I sought out a place I knew I could find the Coalition." He sneered, and looked off to the side. "Riders; they think they're so high and mighty, so superior to everyone else; they've got loyal dragons, freaks of nature on their side, and gods forbid it if you _dare_ to try and argue with them!"

He paused for effect, clenching his fists and vibrating with faux rage before making a show of cooling himself down. "But they're not always that smart," he continued, grinning again. "Lips loosen when they think you have nowhere to go, and I know things about them that I'm sure they'd cringe at hearing me share with the oh-so-hated Hunter's Coalition that they're so _valiantly_ struggling against."

Dagur paused again, and then turned slightly, walking up to Ryker and grinning even wider as he took the risk and slapped both of his hands on the hunter's shoulders. "I want payback," he said darkly. "I want to see Hiccup and Astrid and Hawken and all the others squirm and scream as we break through the chinks in their armor and bring them down. Viggo's the brains, right? You're the brawn with the men to carry out the dirty work, and I've got secrets to share to get you even further than kidnapping one of their precious Night Furies ever could. I mean, if they ever do find him, what do you fight with then, huh? You've gotta have a decent play afterward, especially where Hawken is concerned. Help me help you, and I can finally take back my tribe and gain that reputation I've always strived to reach while you and your brother get free reign to run your business without any pesky riders slowing you down anymore. Isn't it a beautiful thought? Heh. Hah. Muahahahaha!"

Ryker watched Dagur's twitching eyes stonily for several moments before he carefully pulled the Berserker's hands off of his shoulder pads. Dagur held his gaze, but inside he was now worrying that he'd over-sold it. Did Ryker buy the spiel? What could he actually offer in his half-truths that would seriously give Ryker and Viggo what they thought they wanted without also risking the Riders any more than they already were? Had he stepped in too far?

Finally, Ryker gave a short nod, and Dagur felt a sweep of relief in his chest. "Personally, I think any decent offer of assistance against the Riders is worth at least considerin'," he said, folding his arms. "They've gotten too far with what little they dug up. But, Viggo does have te have a say on the matter, especially if it involves any big changes to our plans. I remember you pretty well though, an' how much ye hated those blasted fools on Berk, so I think we ought te take ye up on yer offer. Especially if you really did learn anythin' useful while on their island." For the first time, he grinned. "A real inside man would work wonders."

Dagur didn't have to fake his reaction to the news, pumping his fists up in a delighted but also violent motion. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "Just what I was hoping to hear! Let's not waste any time then; the sooner we talk to Viggo, the better. After all, right now I hear those Riders are stretched rather thin, and what better time to strike a blow or two? Hit 'em while they're already down, only good way to make sure they can't get back up! Ha ha!"

As Ryker returned his malicious smile and turned away to study the map on the tent wall (no reason to leave yet with the storm outside after all), Dagur's grin turned smug. _Or,_ he thought, _what better time to strike a blow than when you're looking the wrong way? All I need is to get close enough to find out where you're keeping the Night Fury, and then it's game over._

* * *

 **A/N -Aaaannnd we're back with another chapter! A bit of a short interlude, a moment with some different characters for a bit. Particularly he setup needed for Dagur's role in the rest of the story...**

 **As always, what do you think? Please do let me know in your reviews! And don't forget to check out my account on DeviantArt, as probably by the next time I get the story updated here almost everything will be up there, with sketches and all for everyone to enjoy. Speaking of sketches: I actually just today uploaded a new photo of Amethyst to DA, would love to know what people think of her! And, I should hopefully be getting an updated Night Fury entry into the Book of Dragons soon, followed by the entries for the latest dragons that HTTYD 3 introduced us to (fantastic film by the way; didn't make me cry like the last one did, but damn it was close...)**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	31. Chapter 30: Come Back to Me

**A/N-WOW it's been too long...but I have reasons!**

 **So, for those in the US and in school, you might be familiar with finals...and it's just about that time for me. Plus time to put final grades in for all my lab students. I also got hit with something known as viral vertigo right when I was supposed to be posting this chapter, so I was unable to get anything done for 2 straight days as I could not stand up...**

 **But finally, FINALLY, our next chapter is here. So let's move past my sob story and get back to our fictional friends. It's time for emotions, family, reunions...and a little bit of romance :D**

* * *

Chapter 30

Come Back to Me

/

 _I never knew what pain truly was_

 _Until I thought that you were gone_

 _All anguish till then was a foolish lie_

 _For this was agony far beyond_

 _The world in whole meant nothing_

 _Without your comforting touch_

 _And I saw and heard no good_

 _When I only felt too much_

 _And now I see what it means to love_

 _What perfect care was always meant to be_

 _But even with the scars that it will behind it bring_

 _Still I pray, come back to me_

 _-0-_

"Don't run away, don't run away, come back to me! Don't run away, don't run away, come baaaaaccckk!"

A sonorous harmony was the first thing he registered as he began to drift back into the conscious world: two voices, one electronic and obviously stemming from the song playing somewhere nearby, and the other oddly familiar and reassuring and of someone present, singing along with it. This individual however, he could not place.

"Don't run away, don't run away, come back to me! My love is here, my love is here at arm's length!"

The music began to fall off into a softer instrumental chord, and he fought to bring himself to full consciousness, especially as it sounded to him like the person singing with the music was almost crying through the words and he wanted to fix that, somehow. How he could though escaped him; everything escaped him presently, actually. He couldn't recall just about anything that he knew he should know, not where he was, barely even _who_ he was, let alone who it was that he was hearing only a few feet away. No other important details seemed able to break through the fog lying heavy on his mind, and the sensation of loss scared him. The only thing keeping him from actually falling into a panic was the singing/crying voice, so he held to that sound as tightly as he could in the lost nothing that was his head.

"Maybe…we can…heal each other. Maybe…this won't…hurt forever. I don't want to push you away, I don't want to hold you at arm's length. I don't want to push you away…it's just a knee-jerk reaction."

The song began to fade away completely, reaching its end, and he suddenly found an urgent need to wake up fully as the singer too fell silent. With a force of will, he began to be able to pick up physical as well as auditory sensations, and smells.

He was lying on something fairly soft, if supportive, set up on an ever-so-slight angle. The room smelled empty, sterile and chemical, yet there was a waft of something living that was comforting, earthen and mammalian and smelling like home. But, his wrists and ankles were bound somehow, immobile in tight restraints, so that he could not change from the position on his back that he was currently in. The panic began to return once more in force, and with it, as his eyes cracked just barely open for the first time in days, staring up at the blank white ceiling of the strange room he knew he had never seen before, the final straw fell into place: the pressing, restricting, intimately close and biting presence of a leather and metal muzzle strapped tightly around his mouth and tied behind his head.

That was the first memory that came barreling back into his consciousness: his youth, being targeted by other young mammals and forced into a makeshift muzzle, scarring him for life both physically and mentally.

His eyes snapped open to their fullest extent, pupils tightening to slits and his fur standing out on end across every inch of his body, and he began to thrash wildly in his attempt to free his paws so that he could claw the infernal contraption off his face.

"Errrrr…..gert it off! Gert it off!" he screamed through the wires, throwing his head back and forth and barely registering the gasp and rapid pattering of furred paws over to his side, followed by a sudden presence on the bed right next to him.

"Nick!" the same voice from earlier exclaimed. "Nick, calm down! Please, calm down, let me help! I'll take it off! You need to stop struggling or you'll hurt yourself!"

He stilled barely long enough to lock eyes with a gray-furred and purple-eyed rabbit leaning over him, her face strained by just as much terror as his but for entirely different reasons. Nick (for after hearing the rabbit say the name he was also certain that was in fact who he was) knew that he should somehow know her, but for the life of him in both his panic and hazy mindset could not place her.

However, she obviously knew him as well, and the fact that she wanted to help him managed to cut through the hysteria he was beginning to fall into, so after a moment of his mind racing to try and put pieces together he collapsed, sighing as he fell back into the mattress and pillow below him and his racing heart slowing only just enough to be heard over again.

The rabbit gave a soft sigh of relief and reached forward slowly, carefully unlatching the muzzle and slipping it up and off his head, bringing with the freeing sensation a feeling of relief and lost adrenaline. Even more comforted was he when she took the thing and slung it across the room where it crashed into the far wall. Nick sucked in a huge, open-mouthed breath with the release and felt the last of his fight-or-flight reaction evaporate away, and he closed his eyes for just a second more to try and regain his bearings fully again.

Momentarily, he also became aware of the fact that another song was beginning to play somewhere in the room, but that distraction was soon swept aside in favor of the lapine requesting his attention.

"Nick, are you…are you okay now?" the rabbit asked, and Nick's eyes flickered open again to regard her. He wanted to answer yes, but something held him back for a moment; first, he knew he needed to know who she was, why he knew her and how so that he could address her properly.

"Who…who are you?" he asked slowly, cautiously.

The sudden, cold look of hurt that ran across the lapine's face only a second later, full of fears made real, made his heart drop like a stone, and in that instant he knew that question was the worst thing he could have said, but he still could not think of why. He moved immediately to reach out and grasp her shoulder, ask what he was missing, tell her that he knew he knew her but his mind wasn't working, only to be reminded forcefully that he was also still strapped down to the bed. Something in his throat tightened up.

"N-Nick?" the rabbit stammered, starting to tremble alongside her words as tears welled in her eyes. "You…you d-don't remember me?"

Nick couldn't make himself answer now, mouth opening to try and say something in reply but no sound exiting as his blank mind strangled itself.

The rabbit hiccupped, before stuttering, "Nick, it…it's me, Judy. Judy Hopps; you know…you…something, please!" She spread her paws open slightly in her lap and leaned forward, pleading for him to know what he didn't know.

Nick was at a loss, staring hard at her, into her eyes, straining, willing himself to drag up something because he could see her heart tearing in half. He needed to know and he needed to know now for both their sakes: why was he in this room, why was this rabbit in the room with him, and why was she so ready to just jump up on his bed and pull a muzzle off of a terrified fox? Why did she reassure him so much just by being there? Where even was "there?" Why…?

It swept back in with a gale force, an overwhelming flood, and in the staggering shock of it all Nick dropped back with wide eyes into the bed as soon as he registered that spike of earthen scent again; _her_ scent.

Why that was the trigger he would probably never figure out, but after that it didn't really matter as for whatever reason Judy's scent was the key that unlocked his mind, his memories. It flashed by in an instant, all of it: his life through the war and into peaceful times, the Wildwood incident, the following years joining and being on the police force around the castle, the time spent with the dragon riders in recent weeks….

Her.

Everything locked back into place all at once, and Nick gasped a wheezing breath as he tried to reconcile with it, feeling like he was drowning and struggling to breathe and yet at the same time taking that life-giving oxygen in one. "Judy," he whispered softly, feeling the word as just right on his tongue, before he forced his head back up to look at her and exclaiming loudly, "Oh my God, Judy! I am so sorry!"

Judy saw the transformation from lost soul to Nick in that instant as well, and she immediately broke down crying in great sobs as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around the fox's neck. "Nick!" she heaved. "Oh Lord, thank you! I thought…especially right then…we all thought we'd lost you, Nick!"

She was trembling and tightened her grip, and Nick decided it was perfectly fine to ignore the growing wet spot from her tears on the gown covering his chest in favor of leaning his chin over her shoulders. "Hey, hey, it's alright now Carrots, I'm here," he reassured, earning a sobbing laugh at his use of the nickname; he knew that would be what helped right then. "That scared me too; I couldn't remember anything for a bit. But I swear to you I'm back, okay? I remember, and…" he trailed off, becoming well aware that he was still tied to the bed for the most part as he instinctively jerked his arms to try and hug her back.

Letting out a shaky chuckle, and knowing exactly what kind of reaction would really help Judy affirm that he was really back, he whispered softly into her ear, "But you know, I can't really return the embrace if I'm still strapped in like a waterboarding victim, Fluff!"

Judy's head snapped up immediately and she looked at him incredulously, like she couldn't believe this tod under her could make a joke like that at such a time. Then she caught the look in his eyes however, and broke down into a sobbing, belly-aching laugh as she reached over to loosen and undo the straps binding Nick's wrists and ankles. As soon as he was free again, she launched back up and grabbed him in another hug, one that he willingly returned full force, sitting up and wrapping his arms and tail fully around her.

"Don't you ever do something like that to me again," Judy said raggedly over his shoulder, noticing a nurse attendant appear at the doorway and shooting her a look. The nurse luckily understood the expression fully and nodded, stepping back out silently before Nick was ever aware she was there.

The fox chuckled weakly and patted the rabbit on the back. "I promise I will try my best," he said. "There's no way I'm going through forgetting you again, not on my life. Ugh, that was horrible; I missed my bunny."

The words registered, and a sudden, awkward silence fell as they both considered what he'd just said. Nick's mind went blank (luckily, not the same kind of blank as before), and then shot forward at a million miles an hour trying to figure out how he could rationalize that phrase without it sounding wrong or pull up an excuse to explain it.

Judy beat him to it however, looking up at him with a furiously visible blush but yet not hiding her ears for it. A slow, almost sultry smile stretched across her face, and she asked quietly, "So, I'm your bunny now am I, Slick?"

"I…well, uh…look, Judy, what I mean is"-

She cut him off, placing a finger to his lips to silence him, and her face grew at once both serious and panicked. "Look, Nick," she started slowly, but pressing on as if afraid that if she stopped she'd never be able to start again, "there's something I need to tell you, something I should have said before this mess started and that afterward I was afraid I wouldn't get the chance when you were shot so…"

She paused, realizing she was starting to ramble and trying to gather the courage to say it, and it gave Nick's heart time to also stop and then take off at rapid fire. Somehow, he knew what she was going to say, but he was terrified still of actually believing it lest there was a chance he was wrong.

"Nick, I…I love you," Judy finally blurted out, "and I've realized I probably have for a long time and just didn't know it, or was scared to believe it, and I don't know if you feel the same way but everyone else seems to think you do. And I can't keep it to myself anymore, especially after almost not being able to ever tell you." She sucked in a shaky breath, and looked at him worriedly before glancing away; she couldn't meet his gaze now, not now that she'd admitted it and had yet to hear his response. "I-if you don't feel the same way, I u-understand; you're a fox, I'm a rabbit, we're so dissimilar in who we are, and you're eight years older than me, and"-

It took Nick that long to finally interject, as her confirmation of his hopes had shut his brain off again for several seconds. When he finally became coherent again, and she was still rambling, he reached up and grabbed her shoulders, startling her into silence.

"Judy," he said softly, reaching up with his right paw to turn her head to look at him again, "I don't think we're so different in the end. I would be a fool and a liar to say that I…that I didn't love you too, but I have to know, are you certain that I am someone that you want to love?" He didn't want to say those words, but he felt he needed to; he needed to be sure, especially as one particular moment had survived the wipe Wildwood gave his mind while he was under its influence, a moment that scared him above everything else too. "I have one memory coming through from when I was under, and it was me lunging at you. What…what if it happens again, and I hurt you? I could be dangerous, and I couldn't live with myself if I…if I did something to you. Plus…well, you'll never have a family of your own with me, you know." His ears had long since fallen before this, and Nick held her gaze only for a second longer before he looked away, fearing her response.

This time it was Judy who turned his gaze back to her. "I've known the risks ever since we first met, Nick," she replied softly, "and I didn't think it was enough to be worth leaving then, and certainly not now. I've stuck with your secretly insecure butt this whole time, and that's not going to change now. Besides," she continued, starting to smile and trying to draw him into one too, "I'm probably the more dangerous one between the two of us, you big marshmallow. You couldn't possibly hurt me enough to drive me away."

Nick did smile at this, his heart lifting, before his lips curved to a grin. "Wait…are you calling me sweet and fluffy?"

"Your tail alone confirms the latter. The former…well, maybe. I haven't had a taste yet though." Now it was her turn to smirk at Nick's reaction of shock, before she also realized how that sounded and coughed awkwardly. However through it she reached forward and grabbed the tod's paws, leaning closer. "I mean it though Nick," she continued. "If you feel the same way, then I'll fight through Hell and back to keep next to you. I love you, and personally, I'm done denying it."

A silence fell, but this one wasn't stiflingly awkward or panicked; it was tense, but a distinctly different flavor of tension was pulling strings now. Unknowingly, the two mammals found themselves being drawn forward, eyes focused solely on each other and the world fading away around them.

Then, though his long snout and her blunt muzzle didn't quite fit at first, they both found themselves with their eyes closed and their lips connecting, locked in a sensation like electricity shooting down their spines.

Eternity passed, and yet it only lasted moments as well. The two of them parted, breathing deeply and grinning like fools.

"I love you Judy," Nick finally admitted straight out, with no caveats attached. Judy bit her lip in a girlish smile before replying, "I love you too, Nick. And I was right: you are sweet."

Both of them burst out laughing at that, before falling into the urge pushing at them to come together in a second kiss, this one no less passionate but tinged with the humor that defined them.

"Well, it's about time; thought we were going to have to lock you two up alone before you figured it out," a new but now very familiar voice cut in from the doorway, and both vulpine and lapine broke apart with dual yelps and jerked backward in shock, turning to face the visitor. Their ears fell back in surprise as well as embarrassment to find Hawken leaning in the frame, a knowing grin cracking his face in half and a huge box of blueberries balancing on his right palm.

* * *

Call it a hunch, but for whatever reason I felt compelled to go and grab a container of blueberries that morning as I'd headed for the hospital. Sure, even if Nick didn't wake up that day, they'd be good for at least a couple more and then whenever he did rouse (I refused to think he'd come round as anything other than himself) they'd be there and ready as a "welcome back" gift. I was sure he could use one too, what with the mess we were waiting for him to wake up from.

When a nurse came by and alerted my only a few moments after stepping through the main doors that, not only was Nick indeed awake, but also very clearly lucid, it took everything I had not to simply rush in to see for myself. Judy was in there already, and I knew she'd probably be wanting a moment or two alone with her partner to clear things up and welcome him back herself.

Instead, I called Hiccup to let him know, and told him that waiting just a few more minutes before alerting everyone else would probably be wise. Then I turned and took the blueberry box along with me down to the cafeteria on the hospital's ground floor.

John hadn't left the building since he'd first arrived either, and thereby he'd become quite the regular and familiar face in the food court so that he wouldn't starve himself waiting for his son to wake. I found him sitting alone at a corner table as usual, avoiding any crowds and therefore most of the awkward attention he'd get from people, and I joined him for a moment.

"You're here a little later than usual," he noted aside, taking a bite of the sandwich that he had picked up from the plate in front of him as his eyes stayed fixed on the nearby wall. He glanced down for a moment at the blueberries I'd brought along though, and quirked an eyebrow. "Stop by a store for a snack?"

"Yeah, but not for me," I said, unable to keep from developing a smile. "Had a hunch, and turns out I was right. One of the nurses just told me that Nick's awake."

There was a period of about three seconds where John didn't register what I'd said, and sat there absently as he had been. Then his sandwich slipped from his paws and dropped somewhat messily onto his plate and his eyes widened, gaze snapping up to meet mine.

"What?"

"Nick's up. And, apparently he appears to be of sound enough mind for Judy to have let him out of all of his restraints without permission."

His reaction was immediate. "Well then what are we still doing down here?!" he exclaimed, leaping up from his seat. "Let's go see"-

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down a little John," I admonished, grabbing his shoulder and halting him from sprinting for the cafeteria entrance. "Judy's up there right now and, well, they probably could use a couple of minutes to themselves to sort some things out between each other. Finish your sandwich, and then we'll head up, okay?"

At his glare, I couldn't help but start giggling. "I know how you feel, believe me," I said between the chuckles. "I want to run up there right now too, but I'm not gonna barge in on them yet."

Yep, it was obvious that he wanted to argue, but John was a smart fox. He knew that what I'd said about the pair was true, and he also knew there would be no slipping away from me unnoticed either. With a reluctant sigh, he gave a quick nod and collapsed in his chair, picking up the now lopsided sandwich and taking another few bites to finish it off. It was only thirty seconds later though that it was gone, and he immediately stood up again and looked expectantly at me, almost pleadingly to let him go.

I had to chuckle again at that expression, tempted to tell him how adorable he looked right at that moment, but I knew that I wanted to go see Nick just as badly. So I stood up as well and the two of us headed out at what probably looked to others like a comically rapid pace (mostly because John would not slow down, and I had to keep up with him).

Just before we reached the door to Nick's room though, I grabbed the older tod's arm again to stop him, and little surprise it was that he looked back up at me with confusion and no small amount of irritation, as if he was ready to just snap at that hand. At the look I let go and held up both palms placatingly, keeping him paused long enough to let me speak.

"It's been twenty-five, almost twenty-six years, I know, but just let me go in first and break the news," I said softly. "Remember, Nick just woke up from a near-death experience, and he's about to find out for the first time in two and a half decades that his father is not actually dead. Let's do this slow, we don't want to give him a heart attack."

Again John looked ready to argue, and maybe ready to take a swing at me, but then he stole a glance at the door and a shard of apprehension cut his anger and colored his expression. The reality of what he was about to do truly hit him there: he was going to truly see his son, awake and able to respond to him, for the first time in years, and he realized that the last thing he wanted to do was anything that would risk messing that encounter up. Another sigh welled up in his throat, escaping half as a sob, and he nodded shakily. "Okay," his voice stuttered in a whisper. "I'll wait for you then…call me in, when he's ready. But not…not a moment later."

I gave him a soft smile and rested my free hand on his shoulder. "I promise you I will," I said. Then, squaring my own shoulders, I turned and stepped up to the doorway, peering in with the blueberries ready and in hand.

I caught the very end of the duo on the bed sharing their first kiss, and the sight of the two of them both grinning like idiots. I heard the soft exchange of "I love you"s, and had to bite back a snort of laughter at the short exchange and giggles of their own that followed. Then as they came back together for a second smooch I made my presence known.

"Well, it's about time!" I said loudly, jerking both of them out of their reveries and grinning at their "kid in the cookie jar" expressions. "Though we were going to have to lock you two up alone before you figured it out."

"H-Hawken!" Judy exclaimed, blushing as she scooted slightly away from Nick (though only an inch at most) and her ears fell to her back. "When did you get here?"

"To the hospital, about five or six minutes ago," I replied coolly. "Walking in on you two finally admitting that you love each other, about fifteen seconds ago."

Judy groaned in embarrassment and buried her face in her paws, while Nick simply laid back against his pillow and shot me a satisfied, if slightly put-off smirk. "Yeah, I'll admit that this old fox took forever to say it," he drawled with a wave of his paw. "But hey, apparently being driven mad is all it takes to say you're in love; there's some sort of irony buried in there I'm sure." Giving a shrug, he turned to face me a little better, and his ears perked up; he'd seen what I was holding. "So…do my eyes deceive me, or do you have a box full of heaven over there? Those are for the poor tod stuck in the hospital bed, right?"

His antics proved he was definitely back with us, and it drew a full-on laugh out of me (along with an eye roll from Judy who'd decided to stop hiding her face finally, though she couldn't help but smile too). "Wow, only minutes out of your coma and you're already fixed on food," I teased.

"I think that ought to be considered the perfect time to think of food," Nick countered, licking his lips. "How long was I out, anyway?"

"A few days, actually. But yeah, I'll be honest and say I got these for you; better be thankful, they're a little more expensive than usual right about now."

"Oh, most certainly, oh beloved bringer of berries," Nick intoned, holding one paw to his chest and another up in mock praise toward me. Sitting up, he then bowed in my direction, though he did not hide that one of his paws was obviously stretched forward in a "give here" manner. "I, Nicholas Wilde, do thank you from the bottom of my heart for this gracious and glorious provision. Can I has now?"

I snorted and fell into giggles again at the ridiculousness of it. "Yeah, here you go ya greedy glutton," I said, handing the box over.

Nick wasted no time at all in popping the lid open and throwing a handful into his mouth. "Mmmmmh!" he groaned, closing his eyes in ecstasy and smiling in bliss before he perked up and offered the open box to Judy. "Want some, my love?"

"Oh, don't you start turning mushy on me," Judy warned, though she did oblige and reach over to grab a small paw full of the berries.

Nick shrugged, and dug into the box again. "What can I say?" he mumbled through his half-full mouth. "I must just be a sentimental old fox."

"Ah, and speaking of old foxes," I said slowly, crossing my arms, "we have another surprise for you, Nick."

"Oh?"

He paused in his eating, noting Judy's sudden silence and her odd expression at the same time he did mine. He wasn't quite sure which emotion to react with either; excitement, joy, and apprehension all crossed his muzzle. "What, you find some new, odd historical Narnian secret mixed up in the mess we've been dealing with? 'Old fox' who knew about the Grimborns and left behind a coincidental clue maybe?" He furrowed his eyebrows and looked off to the side in thought before meeting my gaze again. "I know you had to have visited Narnia for the antidote to bring me back from the brink; thank you greatly for doing so, by the way."

"Yeah, something like that, and thank Judy's family for the antidote when you get the chance actually," I mused. "But, this secret's actually a touch closer to home." Turning toward the door, I kept my gaze on Nick for a moment, seeing the gears turning. "You see, while I was off in Asia, we dug up a special little something the Coalition had stored away: Viggo, or perhaps his father or whoever it was that preceded him in their 'business,' had known about and were trading with people from the Narnian continent for at least thirty years, if not longer. They took Wildwood to Asia way back then and started this trouble there. But, uh, that wasn't the only thing stolen from Narnia back then. They also made off with someone who knew how the concentrated stuff worked."

Nick wasn't quite making the connection yet, though admittedly that's how I wanted it. With a warm smile, I turned and stuck my head out into the hallway and called out, "Hey John, if you would come in, please?"

Only a second later another red-furred snout poked in around the corner, and hopeful eyes slowly drifted upward and toward the bed. I stood up straight and stepped away, ensuring that the two of them could see each other fully, and watched with a swelling warmth as father and son locked eyes for the first time in at least two and a half decades.

* * *

Time stopped for both of them in that instant.

For John, he'd seen Nick asleep for several days now and knew what his son looked like of course, more or less, but to see him awake, coherent, and undoubtedly recognizing who John was, was something else entirely. It filled the older tod with an emotional wave that he could not put a name to. And Nick…he recognized the other fox standing in the doorway, but he wasn't quite processing it. After all, he knew his dad was dead.

Right?

But the evidence to the contrary was standing right there in front of him, staring at him with a longing and elation that only a parent who hadn't seen their child in far too long could express. Nick tried to speak, but his throat had suddenly dried out and closed, and he let out little more than a squeak instead. Feeling Judy's hand reassuringly fall onto his shoulder, he glanced out the corner of his eye at her and swallowed, trying again.

This time, he managed to eek out a raspy, "Dad?!"

"Hey Squirt," John replied softly, trembling in his words, and a smile finally appeared again on his face as he took a step forward. "It's, uh…been a while."

Some part of the ice broke with that. "Been a while?!" Nick blurted disbelievingly. "Been a while? Twenty-five _years_ isn't a _while_. My God…we…we thought you were dead! H-how are you here?"

"I was trying to do the right thing and stuck my nose where it didn't belong as was my habit, and got dragged halfway around the world for it," John sighed, shuffling a little closer. "Literally. I got stuck in a hole too and made to help ruin all your lives as it turns out for my troubles, and I thought I might as well be as good as dead to you." His head drooped, and a tear formed in the corner of his eye. "I thought I'd…that I'd never see you, or your mother again," he whispered. "That that was it. And I missed almost all of your growing up, I missed you meeting and becoming friends with your obvious other half here…" he shook his head as he gestured with his paw to his son and Judy, and finally made it to the side of the bed in his shuffling. He reached out toward Nick with his left paw hesitantly, before halting, and letting his paw drop a little.

"I can't thank your new friends here enough for finding me," John continued softly. "I…I can't describe what it feels like to see you again, and…" he trailed off a second time, unable to find the words to finish.

Nick swallowed hard, before slowly reaching out to grasp his father's still hanging paw and drawing John's gaze back up to his in doing so. It turned out he was starting to cry again too, and both their grips were trembling. "I…well," the younger fox stumbled, also trying to root out the right words. He paused, took a trembling breath and another glance at Judy for reassurance, and tried again.

"You're here now," he said finally. "And…oh God, Dad, I missed you!"

Both foxes broke down and leaned forward, dragging the other closer and hugging each other hard as they sobbed. Hawken was still in the doorway, and tilted his head to catch Judy's eyes with a meaningful look. Judy in turn awkwardly cleared her throat, and stood up to climb off the end of the bed.

"If you, uh, need some time alone we can leave you be," Hawken said softly. "We'll be right outside."

"No, no, wait," Nick said, shaking his head over John's shoulder and raising a paw to stop him and Judy. "Don't leave. Hawken, you brought him…brought him back, right?"

"Uh…yes, I did…"

"Then…oh, dammit this is gonna sound so mushy…ah, to heck with it. You two are as good as family to me right now, okay?" Nick chuckled in slight embarrassment and leaned back slightly from the hug to wipe his eyes. John moved to sit next to him in response, and they both looked over at the young man in the doorway. "Don't tell anyone I said that though, got it?" Nick joked, though somehow also in earnest.

Hawken laughed and Judy joined in a moment later as they both moved in to join the foxes at Nick's behest. "Don't worry," Hawken reassured with a grin, "your secret's safe with us, unless it's absolutely necessary to share."

"Better not ever be."

Another round of chuckles, and then Nick turned back to his father, tears still falling despite both their attempts not to cry. "Mom's gonna be so happy to see you," the young tod continued in a half-croak.

"I hope so," John agreed. "How…how's she been?"

"Doing fine; whipped my tail for being an ass for several years once Judy dragged me out of a bad place and back to her."

John chuckled and glanced at the smirking rabbit. "Yes, Judy told me a little about that," he mused.

"Right," Nick gulped, chuckling nervously. "A-anyway, and she loves Judy too, so we all get along perfectly now. Oh, she's going to go nuts having you back again…maybe we'll skip the party that'll follow though. That might be a little much."

"Not a chance, Slick," Judy snickered. "If she wants to celebrate with us, then by celery we're gonna stick around. You can't escape motherly enthusiasm, you should know that!"

"Ah, well, maybe we'll still be dealing with our case here and have to miss it. What a shame."

"I'll side with your partner and say not a chance," John interjected, poking the top of his son's head and then crossing his arms, looking between Nick and Hawken. "I know first-hand what kind of mess those hunters made with their schemes, and if you're staying and helping them so will I, however I can. Then when it's over and done, I'll head back when you two do. I…I miss Vivian, but I want to make sure my return is under the best standing possible. She deserves that much after all this time." He stared pointedly at Hawken, as if daring the young man to disagree, before turning to glance sidelong at his son again. "You call Hawken and his friends here family now too?"

Nick shrugged helplessly. "Well…already admitted that out loud, so yeah, can't take it back now."

"Good. Family sticks together, and now that I have you again I'm not leaving until I'm sure we're all safe."

"Oh, and speaking of family, guess what?" Judy exclaimed, a new grin forming as her ears both tilted toward the door. "I think a few more just showed up."

The sound of footsteps soon reached all their ears, answering the question in everyone else's minds, and Nick just barely had enough time to try and twist on his classic self-satisfied smirk before several sets of heads popped through the doorway: Hiccup, Holly, Astrid, Toothless, and even Cami to name a few in the first round of visitors that stepped inside a second later.

"Well well, look who decided to join us back in the land of the living!" Cami exclaimed, running over and, to Nick's great protest, grabbing the fox in a bear hug.

"Ack! Uh…good to see you too, Hamster," Nick blurted, before laughing sincerely at the mock-irritated shoulder jab the Viking woman gave him. "Yeah, I mean I couldn't just leave you all helpless and blundering around here without me, could I?"

"Eeeyyyep, he's back," Hiccup laughed. "And I see someone brought the bag of sass a box o blueberries; you guys feeding his ego again already?"

"Guilty," Hawken grinned, "but this time around he deserves it for what he went through. It's the one time I'll give him a little slack."

"Aww, come on, you won't hold blueberries hostage against me later, would you?" Nick whined, folding his paws and looking up at the others pleadingly. "What a crime! They're delicious _and_ healthy!"

"We know your weaknesses. Too bad Judy's too headstrong to use against you."

"Oh, did they finally say something to each other?" Holly interjected, pushing through and smirking at the younger fox and rabbit.

"Oh yeah, walked in on them kissing so I have to assume so," Hawken affirmed. "Which is one more headache we no longer have to try and deal with; now it's just kicking Viggo's ass somehow for dropping us all in this mess."

And with that note the mood dropped. "Yeah," Astrid sighed, "and we're back at square one to boot. At least we have a cure for the feral dragons now though, and we got John out of his prison, but now…do we have anywhere to go?"

There was a moment of depressed silence, before Nick snorted and cleared his throat, shaking his head at those around him. "Look, if pessimistic and cynical little me can see a bright side, there's got to be hope," he retorted. "Yeah, the hunters have us cornered now, but eventually everybody slips up; I did, or Judy would have never gotten through to me. We'll get our chance, I'm sure of it."

"I hope so," Toothless grumbled from where he sat past the end of the bed, though he did give Nick an appreciative look for the thought. "My own son's still stuck with the bastards, and I can only fear whatever they'll do with him next. We need to get him out, just like we did John."

* * *

 **A/N-Nick's back. He and Judy have finally gotten around to saying what needs to be said. And he's got his father back.**

 **But the story's not over; they're right, not really any closer to getting Tsefan back, so I'm afraid there will be quite a few tense scenes yet. Nick almost died...but it can get worse from here.**

 **As always, I would love to hear what you think, your predictions, suggestions, etc. in your reviews! And make sure to keep an eye out; as I have completed the sketches for them, there will very soon be 3 new (and perhaps the final!) entries for the Book of Dragons! Entries there are also being updated and revamped as I prepare to post them (with their respective sketches and artwork) on DA, so make sure to find me there too if you haven't already!**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


	32. Chapter 31: Chevav

Chapter 31

Chevav

/

" _But I'm only human!_

 _And I bleed when I fall down!_

 _I'm only human!_

 _And I crash and I break down!_

 _Words in my heads_

 _Knives in my heart_

 _You build me up and then I fall apart!_

' _Cause I'm only human!"_

 _-Christina Perry, "Human"_

 _-0-_

"Hi, welcome to Wendy's, what can I get y…"

The cashier trailed off, not believing her eyes when they rose to greet her latest customer. Everyone in the city knew about the odd characters that could occasionally show up when Hawken was out and about, but the shape-shifter was nowhere in sight (not that the Descendants and Co. couldn't show up on their own occasionally, but still) and the very, very recognizable fox in front of her was only very recent news, not something that word had managed to get out and around about just yet.

"I know, I know, I'm handsome and I render people speechless in my presence," Nick drawled, leaning on the counter with a grin, "but we'll have to hold off on autographs for the moment, mostly 'cause I don't have a pen. Let's see, we'll do one value burger meal, a six-piece chicken nugget deal, one of those strawberry fresh-squeezed lemonades, and…oh, hey Carrots, you wanted the baked potato, right?"

"Yep," the rabbit called out from the table across the restaurant that she'd commandeered. "And one of those chocolate frosty-things, or whatever they are."

"Yeah, so we'll make that two chocolate Frosties, and the baked potato with a small drink cup," Nick affirmed, waiting to make sure the cashier was in fact putting in the order and not just staring at him (and now Judy, now that she was aware of the lapine too) before pulling out the card he'd been permitted to borrow and looking at the cashier. "You get all that?"

Luckily the young woman had mostly snapped out of her daze about halfway through the reynard's initial ordering and done her job, so she nodded slowly. "Y-yeah, uh, l-let's see: one value burger meal, one six-piece nugget, one strawberry lemonade, one baked potato, one small drink, and two small…chocolate Frosties? I-is that correct?"

"Sounds like it!" Nick agreed, before translating the look she had at confirming the last part of the order. "And yes, we're good with chocolate. I feel bad for other canines, really."

"Right," the woman said slowly, before snapping herself back into the present. "O-okay then, total is $14.73; is that for here or to go?"

"I think we'll be hanging around for a bit."

"And for the na-name for the order..." At this point she finally cracked and had to ask. "Uh, you wouldn't happen to be Ni…Nick Wilde, would you?"

"One and the same madam, one and the same," Nick nodded, before stepping back slightly and giving a bow, smarmy grin and all. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. They said credit, so here you go." He handed over the card and watched with unbridled amusement as the cashier processed first his confirmation of identity, then on autopilot processed the payment for his order.

"H-here's your r-receipt," she started stammering again, "a-and that should be out shortly."

"Thank you so very much," Nick supplicated, "and if I could have the card back as well? And the drink cup for my partner?"

"Oh, r-right, sorry!"

Card pocketed again and cup in hand, the fox strolled over to the drink machine and dutifully ignored the semi-standstill he'd now created in the entire restaurant as he thumbed through the choices on the little automatic screen, deciding to settle on letting Judy try a root beer (they'd be sharing both, really) before returning to the table Judy had staked out for them.

"They should build a few of these back home," Nick thought aloud, settling back in his chair and taking a sip out of the straw in this drink before setting it down and scooting it over to the rabbit (also ignoring her look for his taking the first sip out of "her" drink). He crossed his arms and leaned back, propping his feet on the table's edge and folding one over the other. "Benji would go wild over the idea."

"Give it 30 or 40 years and they'll probably have both the tech and the interest to do so at this rate," Judy replied, deciding not to get into it over the drink but her eyes settling distastefully on the location of Nick's hind paws. "And get your dirty toes off the table; this is a place for food!" She swiped at him, and then rolled her eyes at his smug chuckle when he moved his paws out of the way before she relaxed into her seat again.

Only a moment later Nick's name was called (still with some stuttering as all the employees got over their shock), and at Judy's glare the vulpine reluctantly acquiesced to being the one to also get up and bring their lunch over.

"Well, maybe we'll get you properly trained yet," the rabbit said silkily as he sat back down with the tray, and she reached over to pull one of the little Frosties and the baked potato over to her side of the table.

Nick snorted. "Right. I'm already whipped and on a leash because of you apparently, not that I say I can mind in that case."

"Good boy."

"That might be pushing it."

They caught the looks the small handful of other customers in the establishment were sending them, and it took all of their self-restraint to keep from bursting out laughing. Luckily for the other patrons though, a more peaceful silence fell as the two mammals actually focused on tucking into their food.

Several minutes later the tray was clearing, and Nick paused in his eating of his Frosty to stare out the window with a thoughtful but troubled gaze. He'd kept his mask up for this long so they could try and enjoy themselves a little bit (everyone else had said they'd earned it, though he wondered who had actually earned a rest among them, considering all they'd done for him), but now it slipped, and Judy noticed. She set down her own dessert to regard him carefully before speaking.

"Something on your mind, Nick?"

He turned to look at her, giving a sniff and a half self-deprecating smile. "Gee, am I that obvious?" he replied, trying to stretch out a better grin.

When Judy only gave him a flat stare though, he sighed and nodded slowly. "Yeah, alright. Look, you've shown it more than I did but we've both always been empaths of different kinds, and I'm pretty sure that among the other things that only got stronger too when we teamed up with the Riders and got marked. When we left today, and Hawken gave us the excuse that it was to help us de-stress and get me recuperating…"

"You could feel that he was pushing everyone away with the same motion too," Judy finished, nodding sagely. "I had to wonder why he didn't tag along with the rest of us today to recoup himself, especially what with that warning he gave us about 'overzealous fans being a risk' or something."

"Exactly," Nick agreed. He paused, biting the edge of his lip. "So what do you say when you know something's eating at someone else, but they're trying to hide it so that it doesn't bring everyone down? I mean, I know I feel what others are feeling, but you know how I am talking about emotions. I can't seem to leave this case alone though."

Judy shrugged. "Well, then why don't I just talk to him about it? Sounds obvious enough if you're uncomfortable."

The fox shook his head. "He's more like I am than you," he disagreed, "and much as it might end up being the same message I think he'd just shrug it off coming from the more optimistic of the two of us. Plus there's that whole 'guys talking to guys' and vice versa thing that everyone seems to fall into. It's why I'm asking Fluff: teach an old fox a new trick, will you?"

That he was really seeking to try and help one of their new friends warmed Judy's heart, and she gave him a soft smile as she reached over to grab his paw. "Well, then, if you don't know what to say, start by not saying anything," she advised. "Just having someone around, not verbally but physically acknowledging that something is wrong and trying to help out, can help individuals that are like this one stubborn fox I know who don't like to open up to start feeling more relaxed and ready to talk. Half the time they'll start venting on their own if you're patient enough, and the other half the time all it usually takes is one word of reassurance to get things moving. So if you really want to be the softie I know you are inside all of a sudden, just go and find him when we head back and sit down for a while. Maybe give him a hug."

Nick feigned mock offense, leaning back with a disgusted scoff. "Oh, how dare you," he remarked. "Suggesting I be touchy as well as feely." With a shake of his head he let out a sigh, and slouched forward with a pout. "Oh well, I guess I might be able to survive it."

"Yeah, and seeing how you're still getting your own head on straight after your hospital stay it might just do you a bit more good too," Judy intoned.

The fox snorted again. "Oh please, Carrots, can't you see that I'm back to perfect already?"

She so wanted to sass him right back, but as Nick leaned forward with his leering smirk shining out, Judy decided rendering him speechless would be the better option. Before he could pull away she leaned forward as well and popped a kiss right on his lips. His flabbergasted expression in response was just what she was hoping for.

"Uh huh, I guess you are perfect enough for now," the rabbit teased, grabbing one of Nick's leftover French fries out of its cup and waving it at him before biting it in half. Then she downed the last of her Frosty and jumped off her seat. "But I still think you should try it. Now come on, we need to go find Holly and the other two lovebirds so we can head back. What was the place they said they were gonna be at?"

"I…uh, well…hold on a sec," Nick stuttered, trying to piece his brain back together after Judy's kiss melted it (and only half-succeeding; his traitorous eyes slowed the progress by following Judy's purposefully sashaying hips and flicking tail as she walked off). "If…if I remember right, it was that c-clothing place, wasn't it? Marsha's or something?"

"Marshall's, that was it," Judy corrected and affirmed, stopping at the door out and turning to wait for her fox to catch up. "Hiccup didn't look that happy about it either; not that I blame him though. What's with most girls and shopping for clothes, really? Shouldn't you just want what looks good and functions like you need it to?"

"Gee, I think I'm the wrong one to be asking Carrots," Nick mused as he caught up, holding open the door for her. They both walked out, and paused next to the parking lot. "I'd bet you would look great in a nice party dress though, if they have one your size. Well, scratch that, you'd look great in almost anything, but that's kind of beside the point."

"How sweet," Judy cooed, looking up at him with flickering lashes. "You're trying to be flattering. And holding the door open for me and everything for once!" She reached up and patted his cheek as she started walking again, earning a roll of his eyes. Then they both froze just as they started to step onto the asphalt, as a series of muffled "Aawwww"s emanated from behind the cars and bushes nearby. Slowly, fox and rabbit tilted their heads to glance at each other, and Judy reached into her pocket to put on her earpiece as they shared one unspoken thought.

Run.

They both took off, gray and orange blurs streaking out toward the bigger parking lot of the main strip mall nearby and crossing the street (causing two cars to honk their horns and skid to a stop in the process). They made their way among the lines of parking spaces both occupied and not by vehicles, and the sound of both feet and wheels in pursuit rose up from behind them. Then the same set of sounds started up in front of them too. Their ears picked up a couple of whoever they were speaking into radios of their own.

"They're onto us, heading east. Anyone got a good shot at slowing them down?"

"I might! They're heading for the Dress Barn!"

"Toothless, Nara, if you're there we could use a bit of help!" Judy called into her com, grabbing Nick's paw and swinging them between a pair of closely parked cars to veer away from the mentioned store, as well as a small maroon sedan driving up to try and cut them off.

"Judy?" Toothless' voice replied in their ears. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"That little detail you and Hiccup warned us about, they're here. We're halfway through the southwest corner of the parking lot!"

"Oh, great, fandom freaks." They could both hear the shudders in his voice, stemming from experience. "Be there in a sec; can you find an open space they won't get to you quickly in?"

"Uh, that might be a little hard since they're in cars and on foot, but we can try."

"Great, we get to play chicken between a bunch of crazed overzealous fans and a couple pissed of dragons," Nick snapped, twisting around the bumper of a car with fluid ease to keep up with his partner. He didn't know how they'd been pinpointed by so many people after only a few days of them being public (he guessed something had to have gotten out about them while he was in hospice still, which wouldn't have helped at all if they'd shown up there; that, he was at least thankful hadn't happened), but if this was what being a celebrity was like he'd leave it to the airheads in that Hollywood place the others had talked about.

 _Maybe it's just worse when the whole world thinks you're supposed to be an animated character,_ the tod grumbled to himself. The simultaneous squeal of several tires around them told the pair they were losing opportunities to hit open ground, but to their relief it was echoed shortly by the approaching shriek of a Night Fury.

"Hey Fluff, feel like car-hopping?" Nick asked glancing up that the roof of the closest vehicle.

Judy followed his gaze and nodded fervently, crouching for a spring. "Okay, on three"-

"Three!" Nick shouted, leaping up and, even without legs like the rabbit's, clearing the car with ease thanks to his relatively newfound strength. Judy stumbled for a moment at his unexpected counting shortcut, but didn't wait long before jumping up and joining him on the car's roof, trying to dampen her hearing a little so as not to be deafened by the car alarm that was now going off thanks to their occupancy.

"Countdowns are supposed to be so we go together you ass!" the lapine snapped at Nick. Nick only shrugged in return before backing away from the car's edge as several young people ran (or drove) up near them and reached out, hoping to accomplish who-knows-what that was running through their heads.

At least some of their thoughts were clarified, as a handful started shouting out at the two mammals.

"I wanna hug him!"

"Judy! Can I get a picture? _Please_?!"

"Come on, don't hide up there! We won't hurt you or anything! Much…"

"No, just take you home where it's quiet, alone, and"-

WHOOOOSSHH!

A sudden blast of wind buffeted everyone around the car as Toothless flared above them, stretching out his paws to the mammalian duo as he glared down at the people around them. "And be imprisoned for kidnapping, physical assault, maybe attempted sexual assault if they didn't manage to kick your sorry asses beforehand!" the dragon roared. "Climb up guys, we're leaving!"

"No argument there!" Nick exclaimed, he and Judy both grabbing Toothless' paws and hoisting themselves up to where they could climb onto the saddle, clipping in to the accessory safety rings further back. "Alright, let's skedaddle before they find someone with a net gun and tranquilizer darts."

" _Don't_ give them any ideas!" Judy snapped.

As Toothless flapped up and banked away toward the Marshall's nearby though, calling Hiccup to let him and the others know they needed to split, one more embarrassing exclamation reached their ears from the gaggle they left behind. "I was so close! Did you see? His butt's even cuter in real life!"

Nick felt his ears suddenly burn like they'd been set on fire, and Judy experienced a wave of jealous fury wash over her, prompting her to turn around and yell out, "Hey! That butt is mine! Go find your own!"

Then her mind caught up with her mouth, and her ears lit aflame as she spotted Nick's nonplussed expression. "Oooohhhh sweet cheese and crackers…did I really just say that?"

Nick only returned with a slow nod as they started to drop down in front of the store, his eyes wide in surprise. "Uh huh. Uh, wouldn't have pegged you as that kind of rabbit, Fluff."

Judy groaned and dropped her face into her paws. "Just forget the last five minutes of our lives ever happened please, can we?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Both of their ears fell flat and they looked away from each other, focusing instead on the trio hurrying their way out of the store off to their left. Neither missed the combined looks of empathy and disgust (tinged with the slightest coloring of amusement) from them all.

"So, you two got to experience a taste of the joys of fangirls, did you?" Holly drawled as Thorn and Nara joined Toothless, allowing the three humans to climb on. "At least you didn't actually get dragged off though, like Hiccup and Toothless did."

"Uh, yeah, I'd rather not recall that particular memory, thanks," Hiccup groaned.

"Yep. And it's _not_ an experience that I care to repeat," Nick huffed, crossing his arms as his blush started to fade. "Paparazzi and bestialists all mixed into one crazed swarm. Eeeccchh!"

"Well, we're certainly going to vacate the area before they get any more ideas," Hiccup replied, nodding to Toothless in signal that they could take off. "The downside of being our own special category: go anywhere that doesn't have a dozen dragons to guard you and we're daydreamer targets left and right."

Nick snorted and glanced back down at the receding strip mall, grimacing when he spotted all the faces still staring up at them in longing from the parking lot. Then he shook himself and focused back on Judy instead, despite the flush that caused. A curious, but equally smug smile appeared though as a new angle on the issue made itself known to him.

"So, you like my butt, huh?"

"Oh God Nick, please don't! Not here!"

"What was that?" Holly called over in a knowing, sing-song voice.

Judy paled. "Nothing!"

"There was an interesting exchange that occurred a couple minutes ago," Toothless answered instead, and suddenly the rabbit's stomach dropped when he looked back with a grin to match Nick's.

* * *

It took nearly an hour of snooping around after they returned to the Carlton household and then Berk, but eventually Nick managed to locate Hawken near one of the rock fields at the base of the mountains running through the island's interior. The young man was dressed as he always seemed to be in his coat, but definitely not feeling as he normally did. He was sitting up against a smooth boulder that looked like it had been worn down just for the express purpose of relaxing against it, but Hawken was anything but relaxed. Several dozen copies of world maps for the earth that they stood on at that moment were stacked next to his right side, and he was heavily focused on another rolled out on the ground in front of him as he scribbled who-knew-what in the notebook in his hands (few could manage to read the chicken-scratch cursive Hawken always wrote in, save Hiccup and Fishlegs).

Around him floated the ashes of what were once probably a dozen other maps or notes, and gravel shards littered the area, the remnants of unfortunate rocks that Hawken had periodically dragged over to himself and then thrown up into the air to blow apart with an enraged fireball. In fact, even as Nick entered the little clearing he watched as Hawken looked down at the map at his feet, tensed, and the sound of pencil lead snapping echoed through the trees. The young man snarled with a mouthful of teeth definitely not human and then lashed out a long gray-orange tail to scoop up another poor helpless stone, which he hurled high into the air above the clearing before throwing a lightning-charged sphere of flame at it, obliterating the object. This time, not even dust managed to settle to the ground.

A moment later Hawken let out a frustrated scream, a sound half human and half dragon but all anger, and collapsed against the boulder again with his hands clamped around his head and his breathing coming out in rolling pants. As a result of the heat that rolled off him almost unconsciously with the scream too, the map at his feet burst into flames. The notebook seemed to only be spared as the cover had been covered in dragon scales, and he'd tossed it a couple feet away before exploding earlier.

The show gave Nick more than a little trepidation on proceeding, but he reminded himself that there was a difference between Hawken taking out frustrations on a rock, and taking them out on him. Swallowing hard and steeling himself anyway, he started to pick his way slowly forward again, steps soft and almost silent; he wouldn't take chances setting the other individual present off again. Anyone who had been around the morpher long enough knew that he had angry fits about little details and such on occasion, but when the young man hid himself away and stewed like this for who knew how long it often wasn't actually anger that was boiling below the surface. Sure, it manifested that way, but the root was another issue; rather, fury vented pain, or sorrow, and was a signal that Hawken was only steps away from breaking down somewhere. Nick knew from experience probably better than most what bottling those breakdowns up would do too, and thanks to Judy how much more good was had from working through it with someone you trusted.

Right then, he hoped he could be that person, or at least be able to offer some solace. Seeing Hawken in this state scared him.

Hawken was so wound tight and focused on whatever he was trying to hash out to work out his emotions that he didn't even notice Nick in the slightest, until the tod was standing almost right next to him. A glance to the side to see russet and orange fur, and he jolted upright, turning to face the uncharacteristically somber looking fox.

"Nick!" he exclaimed. "I…uh, I didn't think you guys would be back yet."

"We had a fangirl run-in," Nick shrugged off. "And really, I'm more recuperated just by hanging around here than by trying anything in town." He paused for a moment, before fixing Hawken with a concerned stare. "You don't look too hot."

He'd meant emotionally more than physically, but Hawken unconsciously reached up and ran his left hand through his hair anyway to find it mussed up and haphazard, or more so than normal. "Yeah," he admitted. "Didn't think anyone would come searching me out here. How'd you know where to find me?"

"Eh, half lucky guesses, half tips from our friends and following the sounds of occasional furious explosions echoing through the forest." The tod turned and sat down next to Hawken, crossing his legs and looking up at the man. "So, what is it that's eating at you so much all of a sudden?"

Hawken didn't react for a bit, just sitting there and staring at the ground. Then he blew out a sigh and his eyes fell to the maps again, expression darkening. "I can't figure out our next move," he said, gesturing to the layout. "Eventually we need to get the antidote to the places we know are affected, but we can't do that without pissing off Viggo and getting some sort of new nasty retaliation in return. It would be something bigger than you getting shot, or just another scale from Tsefan being sent to us. So, we're still stuck with nothing but searching. But, even with the whole team combing one area, it could take months to cover even one mountain range, or checkpoint a single trade route to keep Viggo from moving Tsefan. But he'd have a dozen other options and routes he could use in the meantime, and"-

Nick placed a paw on Hawken's shoulder, cutting him off and making him look down at the reynard directly for the first time since the fox had walked into his field of view. Nick's eyes were soft, but knowing, and imploring, and it took only a moment for Hawken to be certain that he wasn't fooling either of them.

"Not knowing what to do now is frustrating, yes," the fox said quietly, "but come on Hawk: what's really bothering you right now? It's not something that started recently either, I can tell. You've got the same symptoms I had once."

Hawken attempted to remain stalwart in his focus on the surface, but he could feel Nick practically looking through him. His suspicions were right: both the fox and rabbit were carrying gifts for empathy of different forms, and his thoughts would end up coming out eventually if they kept coming to him like this (or if he was honest even if they didn't; it would be worse then though, he knew). Sure enough, that thought broke his will in one sweep and his own walls came crashing down alongside his slumping shoulders.

"I'm a failure, Nick," the young man finally blurted out, eyes beginning to glisten with moisture. "I've…I've let everyone down in some way or another here, and losing Tsefan was just the last straw."

"Oh, now come on, don't tell me you're a failure Hawken," Nick rebuked sternly, shaking his head and tapping a finger on Hawken's shoulder. "Since when did you"-

"I didn't go after Tsefan that day when I had the chance," Hawken cut him off venomously, though the venom was directed all inwardly. "I went off to some stupid banquet and dragged half the team with me doing so, and we left him here to get taken! I didn't inspect those new supposed traders as close as I should have before leaving, because I was too preoccupied with what I thought was a necessary obligation to some ridiculous extra shot of fame. I left this world unattended while helping Zipeau ramp up a fucking TV show, and so let Viggo and his lackeys build up this latest scheme of theirs to the point that it's now ruining lives the world over! I attacked a ruler of a nation who was trying her hardest, even if in a manner somewhat misguided, to protect her own people, because I didn't look at all the facts first and just plunged ahead thinking I knew best! I am a _literal_ powerhouse; I can manipulate a single cell or I can level cities, can turn into some of the most skilled and strong creatures that have ever existed and even bend the laws of physics in a dozen and a half different ways, but despite all _that_ I can't manage to protect my family from being whisked away and tortured, or heal my friends when they've been poisoned by some creep that laughs at us from whatever hole he's dug himself into now!"

Hawken suddenly turned and looked squarely at Nick, eyes flashing but only burning with blame for himself. Depression was deep, and Nick could see every inch of it within the young man. "Tell me then," Hawken continued lowly, "where I _haven't_ let everyone down."

As Hawken turned slowly to look back down at the ground, Nick let him sit fuming and trembling for a minute or two to make sure the man would return to a state he could maybe just listen in. Then, he softened the grip he only then realized he'd developed on Hawken's shoulder (not that the morpher seemed to notice in his state) into a more reassuring clasp, and as he stood up straight again he reached over with his other paw to do the same on the opposite shoulder. Thus, he was planted again right in front of Hawken, and ready to look him face to face.

"All you've just told me is that you're not clairvoyant and that you can't control every event that happens in all our individual lives," he said softly. "That's not the same as failing, in any way shape or form; that's a lesson I learned too, from a certain optimistic rabbit we both know. I don't blame you for not being able to heal me, especially after hearing how you were afraid trying might just make the problem worse and holding a try back as just a last resort. Things turned out alright there too, and from what I heard I think your outburst with Mononoke may have given her a lesson she might have needed eventually, yeah?"

When Hawken only continued to glance down, the tod could only drop his ears in sympathy and sigh at the stubborn streak he knew the whole Carlton family and their friends possessed. "Hawken, come on," he admonished. "I've heard you and all the others talking about how our gifts are God-given, how we have a purpose with them through him, protecting others and trying to set the world straight, but I think in focusing on that you and the rest of the gang are kind of forgetting one rather big part of what's going on here. Tell me, when was the last time you sat back, admitted that you can't run the world yourself –and so realized you're also not supposed to, as somebody up above already has that job- and asked God for help with this? Harsh as it might sound, I'm kind of getting the feeling this whole fiasco might also be a lesson for you guys." He paused, and nudged Hawken's cheek with an elbow to try and get him to look up a little more than he was. When Hawken obliged (if barely), he continued.

"You're taking on so much and thinking that you have to keep everything under control, but you're not the ones who are actually in control here. None of us are, or ever were. And no one is perfect, grand powers and strength or none."

Silence. Nick waited, knowing it was all he could do now.

"No, I'm not, a-am I?" Hawken finally admitted in a voice barely qualifying as a whisper. Even that soft, it managed to crack and he looked up at Nick as tears began falling. "You're right; I don't hold everything together. But I try, and I do that all the time…oh, Lord, forgive me!"

He finally broke down fully, dams breaking and tears falling hard as he leaned forward against Nick's chest and sobbed. The fox didn't move, just shifting so he could hug the young man and let him let out all the stress he was holding in as he needed.

"This is what you've been needing to let out, huh?" Nick said softly after several minutes, patting Hawken's back. When no answer came beyond a slight nod of the man's head, he chuckled in a slow, quiet manner and nodded once. "Yeah. Don't worry, we all make mistakes every now and again; it's part of life. But you've been trying, and that's what matters. Just let it out, and then we'll go and figure things out eventually." He looked down and smiled, even though Hawken couldn't see it. "You've just got to ask for help every now and then, I think. Oh, and I promise I won't tell anyone about this moment here, okay? At least if you won't. I usually tease Judy about being an emotional wreck but I think you just won first place for that prize now."

Laughter finally escaped through between Hawken's sobs, and Nick could feel that he was slowly starting to bring the poor guy around. It felt good, helping someone like this, and after all that the Riders had done for him and Judy, it was a return much deserved, and much needed.

Not that he intended to be this soft and soppy all the time, but when they needed it, Nick was certain he'd be there, or at least a call away, from here on out.

* * *

We sat there, Nick acting like the pillar that I and Holly usually were for our friends and me letting out all the years (yeah, not just the past couple months or so, but years) of tension that had been building to a head recently. Neither of us moved far, even after Nick got me laughing again, for a good fifteen minutes before we made an agreement that this was to stay permanently between the two of us (we'd let everyone else see us at our weakest already anyway, me possibly a touch more often than Nick maybe, but we still wanted to keep some of our public images intact) and headed off toward the village.

I couldn't say that I felt good –I wouldn't until we finally found Tsefan and gave Viggo everything he'd earned for the grief he was putting not only us, but thousands of people and dragons through- but I certainly felt better than I had. Well enough even that I managed to strike up some playful banter with the fox as we walked, although I couldn't help but return it as we neared Berk proper to more at least semi-serious topics.

"So, how are things going with you and John?" I queried, glancing down at Nick. "You guys catching up okay?"

"Uh, yeah, I'd say so," the tod replied airily, one ear flicking in absent thought. "I mean, it's a little awkward considering just how long it's been since I last saw the guy, but it's getting clearer that we can still get along more or less like I remember we used to. Gotta say though, I have to be there when he first sees Mom again; seen it in his eyes this whole time, he's been pining for her since the day he was taken."

"Well, a true love for someone never fades," I noted with severity, pursing my lips. "And, it can make you do some ridiculous things. Like withstand being stuck in a hole helping assholes ruin everyone else's lives without killing yourself, luckily for both him and us."

"Or follow a rabbit onto a harebrained chase for missing dragons and answers across half the globe."

I grinned and looked directly at him. "Glad you're not being shy about admitting it anymore. I heard about the last week or so of your search escapades."

Nick snorted and looked sidelong back at me, shooting off a lopsided grin. "After you all saw it before we did, kind of pointless to keep denying it now anyway," he said. "Not that I'd want to anymore either though; funniest thing happened earlier too. I mentioned we ran into fangirls"-

"Oh God no," I groaned, that tidbit only now registering from earlier thanks to the state I'd been in. Nick nodded in agreement, hopping over a fallen tree as he continued. "Yep, and Judy got all _possessive_ of my handsome self in the process. Yelled out how my butt belongs to her now, apparently. I've been claimed as property."

I lost it hearing that, actually having to stop and lean against a nearby pine I was laughing so hard. "Y-you ha ha ha ha! You're j-joking right?" I gasped eventually, staring at the reynard's self-satisfied expression that rather clearly stated that no, no he was not. "Judy? *snort* Judy, really? Clean, innocent Judith said _that?_ Ha ha ha!"

"Blurted it out and then turned as red as a tomato even through her fur; couldn't help but tease her for it of course," he affirmed. "Of course, the freaks started it by screaming something along a similar line…" Pausing, he turned and glanced back over his shoulder and commented nonchalantly, "Although, who can blame her? I do look good from every angle."

"Riiiight," I drawled, finally composing myself enough to stand up straight again. "Don't go making that head of yours any bigger than it already is, Brushtail."

"You can't deny truth, lizard li"-

"Hawken!"

The sound of Teshra's panicked voice brought us both to a halt, mouths still open from our playful arguing. We looked up as the little Terror careened toward us, breathlessly landing on a nearby tree branch. "Hawken, we need you down at the docks!" she exclaimed, panting hard. "Amethyst's gone nuts!"

"What?!" I bellowed, already morphing. "What happened? Wildwood attack?"

"What? No, no, not like that," Teshra shook her head and opened her wings again to lead me. "No, Trader Johann came in looking all scared out of his mind, and he had…well, I don't know what it was, but he said he had to give it to us because the Coalition forced his hand, and Amethyst was down there and she went ballistic when she saw it."

"That can't be good in any way," Nick worried, climbing up onto my back and grabbing the rope harness I materialized as I leaned down for him, before we all took off. "Viggo sent another message is my guess, and it's a bad one."

"If it's another bunch of bloody scales maybe I can't blame Amethyst," I said in partial agreement, "but Johann doesn't deserve the attack either, so we'd better go and save him before things get really out of hand."

"Yeah," Teshra agreed, keeping pace next to me with ease. "He looked like he'd found a ghost in his hold while sailing in."

When we got there, there was indeed absolute chaos at the docks, and it took all of three seconds to spot Toothless, Feren, and Embron all fighting to hold Amethyst down against the planks even as sparks fizzed across all their paws from her anger. Hiccup, Astrid, and the two elder Haddocks stood too in a grounded semi-circle around a Johann that looked just as Teshra had described. Any more afraid, and I was certain he'd have a heart attack on the spot. He was fidgeting and holding a linen-covered object like it was halfway to burning him, and no one near him looked happy with it at all either, though luckily none of their ire was being directed at the tradesman like Amethyst's obviously was.

Rather, a couple looked more like they too were on the verge of throwing up.

As I landed and Nick climbed off to stand in front of Amethyst as well (he'd figured the capabilities he had could help curb the sparks burning everyone else holding her down), everyone glanced at me but didn't say a word as I first focused on Amethyst. Her scales were fluorescing at such a brilliance she looked on the verge of exploding, and practically the second I set foot on the planks the electric arcs around her surged into violent streamers. Nick apparently couldn't do much about the power that was sitting directly on her scales, so the arcs forced those holding her down to back up some to avoid being electrocuted and thus permitted the raging Night Fury to leap to her feet and immediately pounce at Johann, despite those standing between them.

"Achlema!" I bellowed, leaping into her path and grabbing her around the neck, my wings and tail flaring and flailing wildly as I dragged her back down. The lightning sparks didn't halt, instead sizzling over my own paws as I absorbed them before redirecting the energy into a series of barriers, pinning the poor dragon fully again and allowing me to step back and demorph.

"Achlema!" I snapped again, this time harsh and with enough sharp venom in the word that her eyes finally came to rest on me rather than the trader. They were no less wild than they had been when glaring at him though. "Stand down!" I ordered. "Whatever it is he brought here, it's not his fault! Johann did nothing; don't take it out on him!"

"He brought _pieces_ , Hawken!" Amethyst shrieked back, making us all wince from the volume. Then her own words seemed to strike her as well and she slumped, scales going completely dark in an instant as she began to sob. "He brought pieces! They sent…pieces…"

All her energy seemed to leave her, save what she needed to heave with tears, and a spike of dread pierced my gut as I looked up and nodded to Toothless to have him come forward and console her. I, meanwhile, turned back to face the trader that unwillingly started the fiasco. My eyes swept over Hiccup, Astrid, and Stoick as I did so, and while they all seemed sick I noticed the former two in particular looked quite green.

Johann met my gaze, and his fidgeting increased. "I can't thank you enough for calling her off, Master Hawken," he gushed, though his tone clearly remained fearful of what he had to show. "I…I can't blame her, really, but I had wanted nothing to do with this request and couldn't escape it. The trappers found me at the coastal village of Efjainsdale and threatened my life if I didn't bring this to you, or to sink my ship, and"-

"Johann."

The flat, dark tone I said it with brought him to a dead halt, and the trader gulped and stared at me nervously, waiting for the next question.

"I am going to ask this once, and only once," I said slowly, eyes beginning to glow fire. "And I want one solid, clear answer. What is it that they made you bring to us?"

He swallowed hard, and tried to speak. For the first time since I'd known the man, no words came out at all. Then he coughed, and tried again, trembling. "It…well…no, I can't bring myself to say it," he stammered, gingerly holding out the linen as if he were about to drop it any second. "The-they said to pass on a message too, that this was payment for recent…meddlings. I…" he paused, sucked in a deep breath, and then continued. "This is barbaric, Master Hawken; I am so sorry."

It felt like ice in my stomach as I took the linen, and slowly I started to unfold it, barely seeing out of the corner of my eye both Hiccup and Astrid turning away in illness. Apparently, they had already witnessed the contents, and that made the ice ball in my gut harden further. As I pulled back the last layer, the ice manifested physically in a wave of frost sweeping out around me, and my stomach heaved and barely stayed down enough to keep me from launching my previous meal. Equal parts anguish and unbridled fury drove into my core, and in an instant everything Nick had done for me earlier was reversed, plus some.

It was a pair of Night Fury fins, one the full double tailfin and the other a secondary wing, both of them crusted over with dried blood and jagged from a callous removal, leaving shreds of hardened gore along the severed edges.

"VVIIIIGGGGGOOOOOO!"

The skies above Berk burned that evening, bright enough to be seen for hundreds of miles, as the rage of every soul on that island boiled over in fire.

* * *

 **A/N- The song that starts this chapter is one of my favorites, and hopefully after reading this you can see why it fit too. Despite everything Nick tried, the end here was not a happy one... also, bonus points to anyone who can tell me what the title means.**

 **As always, I'd love to hear what you all think, those who are still sticking with me and reading these! Post your thoughts, predictions, suggestions etc. in your reviews! And get ready, as we're entering the final arc of the story now; some things will get better, some much, much worse. And hopefully I'll get the next few chapters out more rapidly soon, as though I will have a couple weeks coming up where I am mostly away from technology of all kinds I will have more time to write, so here's to getting a bunch of chapters for my other book done so I'm caught up and ready to post.**

 **Lastly, make sure to check out the Book of Dragons, both here and on my DA account; with this chapter I am caught up posting the Two Worlds series on DA and so will be focusing more on revamping and uploading all the dragon entries now, and so far there are already over a dozen chapters updated here and posted there with their respective art pieces. And I have two more new species still to make entries on! the Hobgobbler was recently posted.**

 **Until next time, HawkTooth out!**


End file.
